Capitalisation of operating lease and its impact on firm’s financial ratios: Evidence from Italian listed companies

Abstract

Lease accounting will never be the same again. The endorsement of IFRS 16 on November 2017 sets out new rules for the recognition and measurement of the lease. The new standard removes the lessee’s distinction between operating and financial lease and it will have a substantial impact for companies have previously kept a large proportion of their financing off balance sheets. Under IAS 17 companies have exploited a financial accounting loophole by structuring lease transactions as operating leases, favouring opportunistic behaviours by managers and distorting the investors’ perception of the disclosure. IFRS 16 removes the so-called bright lines companies used to avoid capitalisation of leases and turns any attempt to hide lease liabilities off the balance sheet into a futile exercise to improve transparency of information. The purpose of this research is to analyse the potential impact of the new accounting rules on key financial ratios of Italian listed companies using a refined constructive capitalisation method. The results of the study show that the reflection of the operating leases on the balance sheet shall cause a significant increase in the assets and liabilities and for this reason, there shall be a significant effect on the main debt, liquidity and profitability ratios.