Voluntary adoption of IFRS in Germany: A regulatory impact study

From 2005 onwards, consolidated financial statements of listed European companies have to comply with IFRS (IAS). Many German companies began adopting those standards in the 1990s, on a voluntary basis, because of their need to access international capital markets. A broader and more dispersed investor community could be achieved only by accepting significant regulatory consequences. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the financial impact of initial IFRS adoption on the statement of changes in equity and the income statement of German companies. Our analysis comprised all non-financial DAX groups applying IFRS plus additional listed companies in two selected industrial sectors. The two sectors are chemical pharmaceutical and fashion where, apart from the DAX companies quoted, we have studied other relevant companies in each sector. The analysis of the reconciliations of the retained earnings and income statement has been developed both from company and type-of-adjustment perspective, classifying items in similar accounting categories. The results are that the impact of initial adoption of IFRS was, both individually and overall, significant. In relation to the specific sectors analysed, impact is also relevant, although not as much as in DAX companies, but differs between the sectors.