• Issues Relating to This Standard that IFRIC Did Not Add to Its Agenda

• None

Deloitte has published a Special Edition IAS Plus Newsletter (PDF 113k) explaining the requirements of IFRS 8 and what has changed from IAS 14.

Overview of IFRS 8

Scope

IFRS 8 applies to the separate or individual financial statements of an entity (and to the consolidated financial statements of a group with a parent):

• whose debt or equity instruments are traded in a public market; or
• that files, or is in the process of filing, its (consolidated) financial statements with a securities commission or other regulatory organisation for the purpose of issuing any class of instruments in a public market.

However, when both separate and consolidated financial statements for the parent are presented in a single financial report, segment information need be presented only on the basis of the consolidated financial statements.

Operating Segments

IFRS 8 defines an operating segment as follows. An operating segment is a component of an entity:

• that engages in business activities from which it may earn revenues and incur expenses (including revenues and expenses relating to transactions with other components of the same entity);
• whose operating results are reviewed regularly by the entity's chief operating decision maker to make decisions about resources to be allocated to the segment and assess its performance; and
• for which discrete financial information is available.

Reportable segments

IFRS 8 requires an entity to report financial and descriptive information about its reportable segments. Reportable segments are operating segments or aggregations of operating segments that meet specified criteria:

• its reported revenue, from both external customers and intersegment sales or transfers, is 10 per cent or more of the combined revenue, internal and external, of all operating segments; or
• the absolute measure of its reported profit or loss is 10 per cent or more of the greater, in absolute amount, of (i) the combined reported profit of all operating segments that did not report a loss and (ii) the combined reported loss of all operating segments that reported a loss; or
• its assets are 10 per cent or more of the combined assets of all operating segments.

Disclosure Requirements

Required disclosures include:

• general information about how the entity identified its operating segments and the types of products and services from which each operating segment derives its revenues;
• information about the reported segment profit or loss, including certain specified revenues and expenses included in segment profit or loss, segment assets and segment liabilities and the basis of measurement; and
• reconciliations of the totals of segment revenues, reported segment profit or loss, segment assets, segment liabilities and other material items to corresponding items in the entity's financial statements.
• some entity-wide disclosures that are required even when an entity has only one reportable segment, including information about each product and service or groups of products and services.
• Analyses of revenues and certain non-current assets by geographical area – with an expanded requirement to disclose revenues/assets by individual foreign country (if material), irrespective of the identification of operating segments.
• information about transactions with major customers.
• considerable segment information at interim reporting dates.

Remaining Differences with US GAAP

• Under IFRSs, non-current assets include intangible assets – but the guidance accompanying SFAS 131 appears to restrict the 'long-lived' assets referred to in that standard to hard assets that cannot be readily removed.
• IFRS 8 requires disclosure of a measure of segment liabilities if that measure is provided regularly to the chief operating decision maker. This disclosure is not required by SFAS 131.
• SFAS 131 requires an entity with a 'matrix' form of organisation to determine operating segments based on products and services. IFRS 8 requires such an entity to determine its operating segments in accordance with the core principle.

Changes from IAS 14

IFRS 8 replaces IAS 14 Segment Reporting. In doing so, IFRS 8:

• extends the scope of segment reporting to include entities that hold assets in a fiduciary capacity for a broad group of outsiders as well as entities whose equity or debt securities are publicly traded and entities that are in the process of issuing equity or debt securities in public securities markets.
• requires identification of operating segments based on internal reports that are regularly reviewed by the entity's chief operating decision maker in order to allocate resources to the segment and assess its performance. This is because the requirements of the Exposure Draft are based on the information about the components of the entity that management uses to make decisions about operating matters.
• includes a component of an entity that sells primarily or exclusively to other operating segments of the entity in the definition of an operating segment if the entity is managed that way.
• requires the amount of each operating segment item reported to be the measure reported to the chief operating decision maker for the purposes of allocating resources to the segment and assessing its performance.
• requires reconciliations of total reportable segment revenues, total profit or loss, total assets, and other amounts disclosed for reportable segments to corresponding amounts in the entity's financial statements.
• requires an explanation of how segment profit or loss and segment assets are measured for each reportable segment.
• requires an entity to report information about the revenues derived from its products or services (or groups of similar products and services), about the countries in which it earns revenues and holds assets, and about major customers, regardless of whether that information is used by management in making operating decisions.
• requires an entity to give descriptive information about the way that the operating segments were determined, the products and services provided by the segments, differences between the measurements used in reporting segment information and those used in the entity's financial statements, and changes in the measurement of segment amounts from period to period.

Effective Date

IFRS 8 is effective for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2009, with earlier application encouraged.