The Financial Statements Analysis Working Group (FSA WG) has published a set of documents, under the title: "The Use of Accounting Information to Estimate Indicators of Customer and Supplier Payment Periods" (PowerPoint).

These documents intend to highlight the main results emerging from the studies conducted by the FSA WG over the last few years. The most recent studies of the group relate to trade credits of European non-financial corporations. These studies use accounting information drawn from financial statements in order to prepare indicators of days sales outstanding (DSO) and days payable outstanding (DPO), used as proxies for customer and supplier payment periods, respectively. Results are presented for the eight countries participating in the working group: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Turkey.

We are pleased to inform you that the proceedings of the IFC-ECCBSO-CBRT Conference on “Uses of Central Balance Sheet Data Offices’ information”, co-organised by the IFC, the European Committee of Central Balance Sheet Data Offices (ECCBSO) and the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) in Özdere‐İzmir, Turkey, on 26 September 2016 were published in the IFC Bulletin No 45 (http://www.bis.org/ifc/publ/ifcb45.htm) on the IFC Website.

ERICA WG has published its document: "European non-financial listed groups: analysis of 2015 data" together with its annex "European non-financial listed groups: analysis of 2015 data - Annexes".

The study presents some highlights of European non-financial listed groups, on profitability and financial structure in 2015. ERICA (European Records of IFRS Consolidated Accounts), is a database, for internal use within the members of ECCBSO, composed of a dataset of around 1,000 European non-financial groups, fully representative of the stock markets of the countries participating in the project (Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Spain). The data are obtained from publicly available financial statements, having been treated manually, by CBSO statistics and accounting specialists, to be fitted on a standard European format (ERICA format); this manual treatment means, in some cases, the interpretation of the original data, a constraint that readers of this document should bear in mind.

The ERICA WG has published a new “ERICA series” document, under the title: “Recalculated data in European non-financial listed groups and the impact of the new IFRS 10-11-12 standards”. This short note takes a closer look at how frequently groups restate their data, in which countries, branches of activity and size class the restatements are more common, what caused the recalculations, and finally what impact ‘important reasons for restatement’ have on the statement of financial position and on the profit and loss statement. 

Outlook #4 “European non‐financial corporations from 2007 to 2014”

The Outlook #4 available free of charge at the BACH website, entitled “European non‐financial corporations from 2007 to 2014” uses BACH data to analyse recent developments in ten European economies: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain. This Outlook focuses on the 2008‐2009 financial crisis’ immediate impact over non‐financial corporations’ profitability and funding structure, as well as on the evolution in the subsequent periods, distinguishing short‐term from long‐term effects. A breakdown by sector, size and the distribution quartiles for some ratios are provided in order to better illustrate the diversity of situations among each country.

The IFC/ECCBSO/CBRT Conference on the “Uses of Central Balance Sheet Data Offices’ information” (Ízmir, September 26th, 2016) – Programme) aimed at improving the communication and cooperation between producers and users of the information collected by CBSOs. The event brought together statistics’ producers at official institutions with researchers and academics providing a privileged platform to promote the sharing of experiences from a variety of stakeholders.

The ERICA WG has published a new "ERICA series" document, under the title: "Dividend distribution in European non-financial listed groups". This short note offers an example of the usefulness of consolidated accounts data (under IFRS standards), enabling more accurate results in dividend analysis as consolidated data avoids the double counting of intra-group dividends which occurs with individual data. Using the information reported by the main listed non-financial European groups in their financial statements, it can be highlighted the stability of the dividends policy during the period 2012 - 2014. On average, 70% of European listed groups distributed dividends to shareholders. The percentage increased to 90% for the larger groups and decreased to 50% for the smaller ones. Analyzing the behavior by sector, the energy groups are more inclined to distribution, while construction and services were more careful. The behavior by sector of activity and size were confirmed analyzing all the indicators: payout ratio, return for shareholders, dividend yield and profitability. Probit analysis indicates that lagged dividends distributed to owners and lagged profit to total assets ratio are high predictors of dividend distribution decisions.

The ERICA WG has published a new “ERICA series” document, under the title: “Analysis of Cash-Flow in European listed groups (ERICA database): a snapshot of the 2005-2014 period”. This short note offers an example of the usefulness of consolidated accounts data (under IFRS standards) for economic and financial analysis. Using the information reported by the main listed non financial European groups in their Cash-Flow statements, it can be highlighted the drop in investing activities, intensification of the deleverage process, keeping altogether a good operating performance as a result of its worldwide geographical diversification, afforded by European multinationals over the period 2005 to 2014.

Outlook #3 “Developments in the leveraging process of European companies: Some effects on the asset side”

The Outlook #3 available free of charge at the BACH website , entitled “Developments in the leveraging process of European companies:  Some effects on the asset side” uses BACH data to compare recent trends in non-financial corporation performance in the following nine European economies: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain. In particular, indicators on the financial structure of non-financial corporations, their debt and financial services as well as the structure of the asset side are presented. The analysis includes an assessment of the recent situation in the countries under study and analyses the effects of the economic and financial crisis as well as the evolution of non-financial corporation financing between 2008 and 2013. The main attention is dedicated to the analysis of deleveraging effect during the financial crisis. Particular attention is given to the role of firm size and industry affiliation and to measures of dispersion.

ECB Statistics Paper Series (SPS): The bank for the accounts of companies harmonized (BACH) database

Available free of charge at https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpsps/ecbsp11.en.pdf

The Bank for the Accounts of Companies Harmonized (BACH) is a free-of-charge database containing the aggregated accounting data of non-financial incorporated enterprises for, so far, 11 European countries. While the individual accounts feeding the database were originally prepared in line with national accounting standards consistent with European Accounting Directives, they have been harmonised with a view to preserving, to the greatest extent possible, the cross-country comparability of the resulting data. This article presents the methodology underpinning BACH, including the content of the database. It describes the characteristics of national samples and outlines the harmonisation process. BACH is a unique tool for analysing and comparing the financial structure and performance of firms across European countries. A simple case study is also presented in support.