IFRS Conference - Fair Value

The following were some points made by the participants of the Conference with regard to the issue of Fair Value and various practical difficulties experienced.

1. How to value each component of a financial instrument?
A company owns Convertible Loanstocks of a blue chip borrower.
For liquidity reason, a company may consider selling away the bond portion of the Convertible Loanstock to get some cash while keeping the right to convert the loan to shares. This is to allow them to participate on the upside of the blue chip borrower. And you are ask to value the instruments in parts. How to do it?

2. Fair Value, Tax and Cashflow
Mr Eugene Wong, Managing Director of Sirius Venture Consulting said fair value gives rise to volatility in earnings. Companies in Singapore may be facing the situation where they have paid 20% tax on increased valuation gains last year and get tax deductions calculated at 18% of valuation losses this year.

3. Is there anything that may aid the practitioners in understanding and applying Fair Value?
Mr Foo of Foo Kon Tan asked. Ms Judy Ng of DBS Bank suggested that there should be qualitative disclosures on the assumptions used in arriving at the fair value and also state the sensitivity of a particular assumption to market forces.

4. Mark to market
FRS39 calls for those assets available for sale to be marked to market. How do you do that when the market is thinning/illiquid or when the market has disappeared? Can you get an answer from the auditors? Nope.

In conclusion - Well guys, we are inventing the rules as we play.