Défis et impacts attendus de la nouvelle norme IFRS 16 sur les opérations de location

Abstract

This master’s thesis considers the challenges and expected impacts of the new IFRS 16 norm on operations linked to leases, which is set to become effective on the 1st January 2019. This normative change will bring about a move of the leases system from a model based on risk and rewards to a right-of-use model. One of the consequences is that there will be no longer a distinction between finance and operation leases and most leases will thus have to be capitalised in the balance sheet, thereby possibly increasing it. To give the readers the big picture of this normative revision, we first look at the current IAS17 norm and find that it lacks transparency and fails to ensure comparability of financial information. We also report on how this important change is perceived by the stakeholders and justify why this topic is such a major concern. To assess how the IASB has addressed the shortcomings of IAS 17 with the new IFRS 16, we then describe the functioning of the more recent norm and illustrate it with examples. Given the extent to which credit agencies are liable to influence the cost of borrowing for companies, we decided to analyse their positions on this topic. We find that IFRS 16 will not make a great difference for them since they already capitalise operating leases. However, we demonstrated that more accurate information could help them produce more precise estimates, while in the past, those could differ significantly from one agency to another. In the last section of this research, we analyse concrete surveying data collected in eight listed companies that operate in the sectors likely to be substantially affected by the normative change. They were asked about the impact of IFRS 16 on their financial statements, their implementation process, the specific issues they encountered and their planned communication strategy for their external stakeholders. We find that for most of them, the implementation of IFRS 16 will generate high costs, but whether or not they will be outweighed by real benefits remains to be seen.