The gold standard: communication

Even if companies are ready for IFRS, they need to make sure their stakeholders are familiar with the new standards

By Christian Bellavance, Editor-in-chief

Canadian publicly accountable entities have devoted considerable financial and human resources over the past few years to meet the January 2011 deadline for the transition to international financial reporting standards (IFRS). But that may not be enough: a recent KPMG survey shows that a majority of financial analysts — whose comments drive stock performance — are not fully familiar with IFRS and are not much interested. As unpleasant a surprise as this is, it sends out a powerful message. Companies need to communicate their state of readiness, accounting choices and other key financial information to all their stakeholders to avoid negative impact. In “Stakeholders and IFRS,” p. 26, John Lorinc reports on what firms are doing or should be doing to address the situation.

Occasionally, we hear about CAs who seize opportunities not in their normal sphere of work. Benoit La Salle is one such CA. He quit his Montreal public practice firm to launch a gold mining firm operating in West Africa. In “A mine of goodwill,” p. 18, writer Yan Barcelo tells La Salle’s story, which started with a humanitarian visit to Africa in 1994 as a board member of Plan (formerly Foster Parents Plan).

Our Regulars section features articles on taxation for small business (p. 30), taxation (p. 33), standards (p. 36) and fraud (p. 39).

In this month’s Netwatch, Jim Carroll looks at the location intelligence industry, based on GPS technologies. The industry, he writes, is changing business models on the consumer and the corporate sides at a dramatic pace (p. 12). Remember the proposed bank mergers quashed by Ottawa 12 years ago? They should be a reminder, writes Marcel Côté in Outlook (p. 48), that bigger rarely means better and that investors should be wary of look-alike mergers.

I would like to welcome David Malamed, CA.IFA, CPA, CFF, CFE, CFI and a partner in forensic accounting at Grant Thornton in Toronto. With this issue, Malamed will be CAmagazine’s technical editor for Fraud, replacing Roddy Allan, whom I thank for his contribution over the past eight years.

Finally, I would also like to extend my thanks to the CAmagazine staff, the CICA, all the contributors and you, the readers, for your support during my 19 years with the magazine — as French editor in Montreal and editor-in-chief for the past 14 years. The profession has changed dramatically over this period, and your professional publication has tried to mirror these changes to help you understand and navigate them efficiently and effectively. By the time you read this, I will have joined Financial Executives International Canada. Thank you again for the opportunity to serve you all these years.