M.Com. (International Accounting) / Leases have been used as an alternative means of financing for many years and they form part of the business models of entities in various industries. Many large JSE listed companies in different industries also use leases extensively. Although lease accounting requirements under IFRS have been in place for a number of years, some of the fundamental principles underlying the current lease accounting models have been the subject of much debate by standard setters and practitioners. In particular, the conceptual soundness of lessees not capitalising operating lease commitments has been a key area of consideration. In response to the conceptual debates, the IASB published an exposure draft titled ED/2010/9 Leases (hereafter ED), which will ultimately replace the current lease standard IAS 17. The ED establishes a new “right-of-use model”, which requires lessees to capitalize all leases on their balance sheets. The purpose of the minor dissertation was to determine the impact that the capitalisation of operating lease commitments under the requirements of the ED will have on the financial statements of JSE listed companies. In support of the research problem, the methodology applied in the minor dissertation was a quantitative content analysis, which was designed to obtain ex ante evidence on the potential future impact of the implementation of the ED. In order to assess the impact, the minor dissertation analysed the impact on total liabilities and total assets due to operating lease capitalisation, as well as the impact on certain key financial indicators and ratios. The initial sample was the top 50 companies in terms of market capitalisation that were listed on the JSE at 31 December 2011. After excluding companies with no or immaterial operating lease commitments, the final sample size was 44. The literature review showed that the impact of operating lease capitalisation has been researched in various countries, such as Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the UK and the US. During the completion of the minor dissertation it was found that a South African study was recently published on the impact of operating lease capitalisation on JSE listed companies. The study applied one of the methods identified in the literature for deriving information required to perform the operating lease capitalisation calculation and also assumed a uniform discount rate. The minor dissertation was based on an alternative method of deriving the required information and applied company-specific discount rates. The results of the research showed an increase in total liabilities and total assets due to operating lease capitalization. The impact on the key financial indicators and ratios varied, with some ratios impacted positively and others negatively. The impact was also found to be generally lower than international trends and differed from a similar study performed in South Africa.

Företag kan finansiera verksamheten på olika sätt. Ett alternativ för finansiering vid nyanskaffning är leasing. Det innebär att man låter ett annat bolag köpa tillgången och hyr det sedan av bolaget. Den nya standarden, IFRS 16, som ges ut av IASB och som ska tas i bruk från och med januari 2019, har ändrat kriterierna för klassificeringen av leasingavtal. Vilket har gjort att många tidigare operationella leasingavtal med en avtalstid längre än 12 månader kommer med den nya standarden att klassas som finansiella leasingavtal och därmed föras in på balansräkningen som skulder och tillgångar. Denna studie undersöker effekterna en kapitalisering ger på svenska börsnoterade bolag. För dessa bolag används en kapitaliseringsmodell för att få fram effekten av en kapitalisering av nuvarande operationella leasingavtal på balans- och resultaträkningen för år 2014. Resultaten visar på att balansräkningen kommer påverkas mer än resultaträkningen, då det tillkommer i vissa fall stora skulder och tillgångar. Detta ger genomslag till nyckeltalen, där nyckeltal såsom intensitet av investeringar, soliditet och skuldsättningsgrad får markant större förändringar än andra nyckeltal i studien. / Companies can use different ways to finance their businesses. One of the options is to leas the assets they want. This means that another company purchase an asset then you leas said asset from the purchasing company. IASB have made a new standard, IFRS 16, which will become active in January 2019. This new standard have change the criteria of how to classify leases. With IFRS 16 many of the operating leases that are longer than 12 months, now have to be classified as financial leases. Because of that they have to go from off balance sheet to be a part of the balance sheet. With this study we want to look at the effects that a capitalization of leases have on selected financial ratios in Swedish companies traded on the OMX Nasdaq stock exchange. We use a constructive capitalizations model to see the effects of current operating leases on the balance- and income-sheet for the year 2014. Our results indicate that most effect will be seen on the balance-sheet, because of the way capitalization works, it is intended to bring the leases onto the balance-sheet. We also see some effects on financial ratios, where balance focused ratios gets effected more than others, example intensity of investment, equity/assets and debt/equity.