Business Accounting For Farmers Cooperative: Wesfarmers And Woolworths Case Study

Investment

Discuss about the Business Accounting for Farmers Cooperative.

Wesfarmers were established as Western Australian Farmers Cooperative initially and later they have grown among the largest listed companies of Australia. They have their headquarters in Western Australia and they deals primarily in liquor, convenience store, supermarkets, office supplies and home improvements. They are one of the largest companies in Australia that employs 220,000 employees and has a shareholders count of approximately 530,000. The main intention of Wesfarmers is to offer reasonable return to their shareholder. On the other hand, Woolworth is the largest Supermarket in Australia. They operate 961 stores all over Australia and employ 111,000 employees in their support offices, distribution centres to provide superior services, value, range and convenience. They pride themselves for closely working with the Australian farmers and growers and assure best quality products for their customers. They source 96% of vegetables and fresh fruits and 100% of meat products from Australian farmers and growers. They are well-known about the fact that the customers are always looking for simple, easy and new experience for shopping. Consumers can shop from their computer through their online shopping sites from any corner of Australia. Woolworths also created an app named Woolworths Supermarket App through which the groceries can be delivered directly to the customer’s kitchen.  

Investment: As per the IASB, the investment should be recorded as a significant activity for business and develops particular presentation and measurement. It requires disclosures for conducting the activity of business (Hu, Percy and Yao 2015). As per the standards, the investments should be recorded as follows:

Companies should not use the current value method for the long-term investments. They must use cost-based method or updated measurement through using the long-term estimation and verify about any impairment loss by utilizing the methods, which are entity specific rather than based on market (Yao, Percy and Hu 2015).

If the present value method is used, revaluation must be reported in other comprehensive income (OCI) statement rather than reporting in the profit and loss statement. In addition, the total loss or gain must be recycled or reclassified on the particular date from the OCI to the profit and loss statement (Bond, Govendir and Wells 2016).

Write-down is an accounting term utilized to explain a decrease in the asset’s book value due to fundamental or economic changes in the asset. Write-down is exactly the opposite of write-up. Companies are required to write-down their assets to maintain a particular level of capital as compared to the potential liabilities or portfolios. Whenever the company write-down their asset, they are required to raise the capital from any other source to maintain the obligation of minimum capital (Rossouw 2013). In May 2016, Wesfarmers declared that they are going to write-down assets worth more than $2 billion that includes a big part of their target investment. Adverse effect of writing down the investment from the fixed asset will increase the reported profit temporarily. This decision by the management of Wesfarmers was a tough one but at the same time, it was a necessary step. Failing to react against the severe global competitors, stepping in the sublimate of budget-priced and running through the quick time by the host of managing directors were the main reasons behind writing down the assets from target (Biddle 2016). Other reasons were: targets were underperforming on a continuous basis as the intruders controlled it and targets were finding it unable to compete with the prices. In last 9 years, Wesfarmers target had 4 managing directors. However, after the exit of their long-time boss, Launa Inman in 2011, no director lasted for more than three years. After adding target to his responsibilities by Kmart head Russo, rumours fuelled in the market that all the chains are being merged. This rumours also played an important role in lowering the return from target investment (Rowe et al. 2014). Target investment of Wesfarmers were never been a crisis for the company as it was contributing 5% to the group earning. However, the write-down decision pushed it back to the spotlight.

Asset Write-downs

On the other hand, Woolworths confirmed that they will wind up or sell out their loss making masters chain and will look for potential buyer. Though the analysts welcomed this decision, Woolworth have to write-down $600 million to $1.2 billion out of their $3.3 billion investment. However, they could raise $2 billion from master stores selling and 63 sites. Out of which the company itself owned 39. Exiting the improvement of home will results in $245 million to $300 million of operating losses per year from masters and it will avoid investing more capital in the core business. This decision concluded that the probability of losses will be continued for several years and will create an obligation of $886 million.

The financial statement must disclose the basis on which the value is written down, the method of depreciation, useful life of the asset, gross carrying amount on the date of writing down and any impairment loss that may have been reversed in past. The financial statement shall also disclose existence and restrictions, of any, on the title and if any part of the asset has been pledged, contractual commitment, if any, regarding the asset for the acquisition and the amount of expenses recognized related to the asset. It must disclose the model used for the asset such as the cost model or fair value model. If the fair value method is used, then under what circumstances it has been used and the criteria used for differentiating the investment property and owner-occupied property (Bond, Govendir and Wells 2016).

Wesfarmers allocated $145 million as provisions and restructuring cost for rebasing the target and recorded $50 million approximately as EBIT loss for the target. Non-cash impairment amounting to $600 million to $850 million pre-tax and $420 million to $600 million post-tax is to be recorded as target. Non-cash impairment amounting to $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion pre-tax to be recorded in Target. Accounting impairments for target, which will be the closing value as portion of the group’s annual accounts for FY 2016, are non-cash in nature (Wesfarmers.com.au, 2017). Accounting impairments for target had no material impact on current business. Moreover, it will not affect the group’s conformity with the bank agreement. It is expected that group’s final dividend for FY 2016 will be calculated based on group’s net profit after tax excluding the impairment charges. 

Non-cash impairment will be recorded as a write down of Target’s part of goodwill arising on the acquisition of Coles Group, as well as selected individual store based assets.” As per Bruce Smith, the portfolio manager, said that investors needed to keep in mind that the impairments are of non-cash nature and will not have much effect on company’s solvency or liquidity (Alden 2016). However, it will results in a permanent decrease in the company’s earnings capability of Target, which suggests that the shareholders should not expect the division to achieve the same levels of profits in the future as compared to the past.

Disclosure Requirements

Wesfarmers also revealed that, Target was expected to lose $50 million in the current financial year, before factoring $145 million as costs of reconstruction that were considered to improve their performance. Both figures are different from non-cash impairments. In total, restructuring charges and impairments amounted between $1.85 billion and $2.3 billion.

The exit process of master by Woolworths will involve them buying back 33.3% interest from WDR Delaware Corporation, a subsidiary of Lowe’s company. Woolworth reported $1.2 billion as sales from masters, which was a n increase of 21.8% as compared to previous year. Master loss before tax and interest were decreased by 4.9%, which amounted to $233.5 million. Net assets held for sale amounted to $897.9 million, stands for liabilities  and assets are related to HTH, plant and equipment, property and related to Masters and other Group properties held for sale (Mitchell 2015). After the declaration of the exit from Home Improvement business, the management have promised a plan to practise an orderly potential exit from the Home Improvement business. Additionally, the Group has various property assets, which they are planning to sell (Addis 2016). Accordingly, liabilities and assets related to Home Timber and Hardware Group, equipment and plant, property relating to Masters and other Group properties held for the purpose of sale are included in the following table.

Masters Home Improvement Australia Pty Limited (Masters) as the special agent for managing the selling Masters inventory appointed GA Australia Pty Ltd (GA Australia). Under the appointment conditions, GA Australia has offered a guarantee for recovering % of the cost value of Masters inventory that is subject to certain adjustments and is estimated to deliver gross proceeds of approximately $500 million (Wow2016ar.qreports.com.au, 2017);

Reference:

Addis, J., 2016. Retail sector wrap: One opportunity and plenty of worry. Equity, 30(3), p.6.

Alden, S., 2016. Warning! Don’t think that an agreement to act in good faith is to be taken lightly. Governance Directions, 68(3), p.174.

Biddle, I., 2016. The Wesfarmers/Woolworths duopoly war: The Bunnings vs. Masters battle. Busidate, 24(3), p.3.

Bond, D., Govendir, B. and Wells, P., 2016. An evaluation of asset impairments by Australian firms and whether they were impacted by AASB 136. Accounting & Finance.

Bond, D., Govendir, B. and Wells, P., 2016. An evaluation of asset impairment decisions by Australian firms and whether this was impacted by AASB 136.

Hu, F., Percy, M. and Yao, D., 2015. Asset revaluations and earnings management: Evidence from Australian companies. Corporate Ownership and Control, 13(1), pp.930-939.

Mitchell, S., 2015. Woolworths braces for board shake-up.

Rossouw, C., 2013. The need for specific accounting principles for non-profit organisations’ assets without economic benefits, restricted donations and funds. Journal of Economic and Financial Sciences, 6(2), pp.459-478.

Rowe, A.L., Nowak, M., Quaddus, M. and Naude, M., 2014. Stakeholder engagement and sustainable corporate community investment. Business Strategy and the Environment, 23(7), pp.461-474.

Wesfarmers.com.au. (2017). 2016-annual -report. [online] Available at: https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/docs/default-source/reports/2016-annual-report.pdf?sfvrsn=4  [Accessed 24 Jan. 2017].

Wow2016ar.qreports.com.au. (2017). Home – Woolworths Annual Report 2016. [online] Available at: https://wow2016ar.qreports.com.au/ [Accessed 24 Jan. 2017].

Yao, D.F.T., Percy, M. and Hu, F., 2015. Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics. Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics, 11, pp.31-45.