Meyer Burger Technology Ltd (SIX Swiss Exchange: MBTN) has decided to change its financial reporting from IFRS to Swiss GAAP FER, effective retroactively from 1 January 2013, and to publish the annual accounts 2013 in accordance with Swiss GAAP FER. The registered shares of Meyer Burger Technology Ltd continue to be listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and traded in the Domestic Standard and will remain part of the Swiss Performance Index SPI.
The Board of Directors of Meyer Burger Technology Ltd has taken the decision to change the company’s financial reporting from IFRS to Swiss GAAP FER effective retroactively from 1 January 2013. The principal reasons for this decision are the continuously increasing complexity and the extensive detailed regulations of IFRS. Meyer Burger is convinced that Swiss GAAP FER provides a solid alternative for transparent financial reporting in accordance with the “true and fair view” principle. The Company will continue to present its consolidated financial statements in high-quality and with detailed informative value.
The registered shares of Meyer Burger Technology Ltd remain listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and continue to be part of the Swiss Performance Index SPI. The shares will also remain traded in the Domestic Standard (of SIX Swiss Exchange).
Changing the financial reporting standards to Swiss GAAP FER will mainly impact the company’s accounting policies with respect to goodwill and other intangible assets resulting from acquisitions (customer relationships) and in terms of retirement benefit obligations. Under Swiss GAAP FER, Meyer Burger would have treated customer relationships which resulted from acquisitions as goodwill (recognised as goodwill at the time of the acquisition). With the change to Swiss GAAP FER, Meyer Burger will offset the entire goodwill against equity and regarding the retirement benefit obligations, the company will have considerably lower liabilities on the basis of the existing retirement plans than under IFRS.
The effects of the change to Swiss GAAP FER lead to lower balance sheet totals and to a reduction of the equity ratio. For the most recent balance sheet as at 30 June 2013, which includes the effects of the capital increase and the net loss for the first half-year period, the equity ratio stood at over 50% after the above mentioned restatements have been taken into account (equity ratio of over 46% as at 31 December 2012). A detailed transition statement from IFRS to Swiss GAAP FER will be included in the financial statements of the Annual Report 2013. The Report will be published on 24 March 2014.
