Listen to the 11-minute podcast on the Board's website.

In his article, Mr. Anderson looks at what is required by the amendments and why this disclosure so important for investor analysis.

Aspects he considers are:

• Is this different from a "net debt reconciliation"?
• Reconciliation to other areas of the financial statements
• Sufficient disaggregation
• Adequate explanation
• Simple communication

Review the article on the Board's website.

When assessing the sustainability of future profits of an entity, Mr. Anderson notes that investors will consider questions such as:

• How much capital has the business deployed to generate its level of profit?
• How persistent are earnings likely to be into the future?
• Does net profit include gains or expenses that are unlikely to reoccur?
• Is the pattern of future profits likely to exhibit volatility or cyclicality?
• To what extent are profits supported by cash flow generation?
• What are the long-term risks faced by the business, including material environmental and social factors?

And while they draw on the financial statements, management commentary and multiple other information sources, "no number in isolation can adequately capture corporate performance".

He goes on to discuss cash flows, dividend regulations, and accounting requirements, noting that while accounting is an important piece of information it is just "one piece of the jigsaw". Dividend policy reflects many other factors such as reinvestment opportunities, financing needs, the risks faced by the company, legal constraints and incentive arrangements - and all of these factors differ by company, by jurisdiction and over time. Therefore, Mr. Anderson notes, responsibility to determine whether dividend payments are appropriate is beyond the remit of the Board. But he concludes:

However, there is no impediment to complementing high quality financial statements prepared in accordance with IFRS^® Standards by providing additional disclosures about dividend policies and dividend payments, including any disclosures needed to meet jurisdiction requirements.

Review the full article on the Board's website.

In addition, the webcast discusses performance obligations, value transferred, when to recognize revenue, contract asset and liability, and disclosure requirements.

View the webcast on the Board's website.

The webcast reviews "the academic evidence on the effects of countries adopting IFRS^® Standards on different topics such as financial-statement comparability and foreign direct investment."

Review the press release and webcast on the Board’s website.

The proposal would allow all potential issuers, not just emerging growth companies, “to engage in test-the-waters communications with certain institutional investors regarding a contemplated registered securities offering prior to, or following, the filing of a registration statement related to such offering.”

Comments on the proposed rule are due 60 days after the date of its publication in the Federal Register.

Review the press release and proposed rule on the SEC’s website.

On the same day, the staff in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance has updated its compliance and disclosure interpretations (C&DIs) related to preparing certain disclosures about self-identified diversity characteristics that may be required under Regulation S-K, Item 401, or, with respect to nominees, under Regulation S-K, Item 407. Specifically, the SEC has added Questions 116.11 and 133.13.

Review the Regulation S-K C&DI page on the SEC’s website and a summary on Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP's website.

The topics discussed at the meeting included:

• IASB technical update. An update was given on IASB activities since the last GPF meeting.
• Primary financial state­ments. The GPF members provided feedback on the IASB’s tentative decisions related to primary financial statements. Specifically, they discussed defined subtotals in the statement of financial performance, management performance measures, and disaggregation.
• Management commentary. The GPF members discussed developments in the project to update IFRS Practice Statement 1 Management Commentary (Practice Statement), including the objective of management commentary, applying materiality in preparing management commentary, and principles of preparing management commentary.
• Goodwill and im­pair­ment. The GPF members provided feedback on the disclosure objectives and requirements in development to provide users more information about a business combination and performance.
• Financial instruments with characteristics of equity. The GPF members were provided with an overview of the key proposals in the Discussion Paper DP/2018/1 Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Equity.

Review the press release and full meeting summary on the Board's website.

Below is an analysis of all changes that were made to the work plan since our last analysis on January 25, 2019.

Stan­dard-set­ting projects

• No changes

Main­te­nance projects

• 2019 Comprehensive Review of the IFRS for SMEs Standard — This project has been added to the work plan. A request for information is expected in H2 2019.

Research projects

• No changes

Other projects

• Due Process Handbook Review — This project has been added to the work plan. An exposure draft is expected in the second quarter of 2019.

The revised IASB work plan is available on the Board's website.

He was the keynote speaker at the Investor Forum 2018: Powering Fintech. To outline his vision for the future of structured data, Mr. Jackson presented three specific paths for improving or expanding the role of XBRL data in financial disclosure:

1. fix the incomprehensible public data;
2. expand the use of XBRL;
3. encourage data analysis, not extraction.

Notably, his recurring theme was a collaborative approach in which the market guides the SEC on where to focus.

The commissioner told the audience that “we’re making a mistake as an investing public about what kinds of data we actually have.” A conventional view would recognize two types of corporate financial data: private data—especially about privately owned companies—that must be purchased; and data from public SEC filings. He identifies a third type: data that is “public but completely incomprehensible.” Much of the publicly available data in filings accessible on the SEC’s website is essentially hidden, because mining it is “costly, time-consuming, and error-prone.” With this understanding, one of his goals “for the SEC and for all of you in the XBRL community is that we are going to eliminate that third kind of data.”

Review the full article on Toppan Merrill's website.