Учебно-методическое пособие для подготовки к экзамену по английскому языку (для студентов экономических специальностей). Бегун Н.В - 12 стр.

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                        DEAD, OR JUST RESTING?                                                                    TOUCHY-FEELY
       According to a document leaked to Shukan Bunshun, a news maga-              Accountants want to start measuring intangible assets and new economy
zine, Fuji Bank, Dai-ichi Kangyo Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan             "value drivers". They are unlike to be any good at it.
(IBJ), which have linked up to form the Mizuho Financial group, found                     Should "female potential" be rewarded with a place in companies'
some startling differences in their classification of borrowers when they got      annual reports? Or how about the share of the staff who are younger than 40
together. For example, Fuji had classified Hazama, another troubled builder        and possess a college degree? These criteria, and many more like them, are
to which it had little exposure, as in danger of bankruptcy. Dai-ichi Kangyo       to be found in supplements to past annual reports from Skandia, a Swedish
and IBJ, on the other hand, had placed it in a less risky category. As it hap-     financial group. Telling the world about its female managers and the aver-
pens, both banks had lent large amounts of money to Hazama. Now it                 age age of its workforce, the company thought, would attest to its wealth of
seems that all three banks, like others in the industry, have decided that,        "intellectual capital".
since it recently had a chunk of its debt wiped out, Hazama (whose shares                 Skandia's efforts in this direction seem to have petered out after 1999,
are trading below par) should be considered a "healthy" borrower. Mizuho           when its most recent supplement was published. Now its touchy-feely ap-
says that the leaked document is not genuine.                                      proach looks prescient. Inside accountancy a debate is growing about rec-
       Mycal and Daiei, two struggling supermarket giants, also appear to          ognising and measuring internally generated intangible assets – such things
have been kept out of the worst two categories of debt. Despite persistent         as intellectual capital and research and development. Many argue that more
talk that they are highly vulnerable, most banks seem to be happy that their       attention also needs to be paid in annual reports to non-financial, "soft"
debt is secure. The capital markets are less certain. One of Mycal's bonds,        measures such as speed-to-market, quality of management and customer
due to mature in 2008, is now priced at ¥33, a third of its face value. Inves-     satisfaction. Ideally, the fans say, there should be rules about what extra
tors would still, in theory, be able to get the full ¥100 a bond if they held on   information companies must disclose, and how.
to maturity. That they are scrambling to sell (the price of these bonds has               Late in 1999 America's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
halved in the past two months) suggests they are afraid either that Mycal          gathered some people together to look into how accountants might get bet-
might not be around in 2008, or that it will default on its debt before then.      ter at revealing "value in the new economy". According to Jeffrey Garten,
       Why do the banks seem so optimistic in the face of such market pes-         dean of Yale's business school and leader of the SEC's task-force, which
simism? One reason is that they cannot afford to be more cautious. Banks           will report its findings later this month, changes in the world's industrial
have to set aside reserves for only 15% of a loan that is "in need of monitor-     structure are threatening to make existing accounting standards obsolete.
ing". Reclassifying a loan as "in danger of bankruptcy" would mean reserv-                Profits in the internet age, the argument goes, are generated less from
ing against 70% of the loan instead. The bigger the borrower, the bigger the       solid assets such as factories than from intangibles such as research and de-
hit, and some banks, already hurt by a sliding stockmarket, might find it          velopment or software programs. The SEC's report will conclude that com-
hard to meet capital-adequacy requirements if they reserved more against           panies should experiment with disclosing new types of information. A re-
big borrowers. Others might even be unable to make dividend payments on            port in April by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) said that
preferred shares owned by the government – putting them at risk of, in ef-         it would undertake four projects on non-financial metrics and intangible
fect, being nationalised.                                                          assets.
                                                                                          The problem with all of this is that nobody inside the accountancy
                                                                                   profession has much idea of how to put a numerical value on internally
                                                                                   generated intangible assets, at least not while staying true to the principle of
                                                                                   reliability. Under the present regime, most intangible assets are recognised
                                                                                   in the balance sheet only when one company buys another and has to ac-
                                                                                   count for the "goodwill" part of the cost.
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