Impacto da adoção das IFRS nas empresas brasileiras de saneamento: a percepção dos profissionais do setor

Abstract

The enactment of Law No. 11,638 on December 28, 2007, paves the way for the accounting convergence of Brazilian accounting standards with international ones, by making mandatory the use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for consolidated financial statements from 2010 onwards. Some of the changes are specified by the law itself, and must be complied with immediately for the annual balance sheet for 2008, to be published in 2009. The other changes will depend on standardization by the Brazilian Securities Commission (CVM) and will gradually come into effect as they are published. Other countries' experiences have shown that the IFRS convergence process for financial statements can be complex, last long, and result in major impacts on companies' income and shareholders' equity, with considerable effect on the price of their shares in capital markets. Considering that those changes may entail significant economic impact for Brazilian companies, this paper has the goal of analyzing, starting from accounting professionals' perception, what difficulties will be faced in the adoption of IFRS and what impacts will probably occur on equity and income for Brazilian sanitation companies. The research was conducted by applying a questionnaire to professionals in charge of accounting information in fifteen companies comprising the population sample of the sanitation sector. The sample represents 90.83% of the population's total assets and 86.5% of its net income. By subjecting the results to descriptive and cluster analyses, it was observed, among other issues, that, in accounting professionals' perception, the adoption of IFRS will result in impacts on balance sheet and income for companies in the sector. The study also showed that there is still a difference between the perception of the professionals who work in publicly-held companies and that of those in closely-held companies. However, although it was expected, no difference of perception was evidenced between publicly-held companies that already prepare their statements under foreign standards and those that do not.