Example 1 (see paragraph
852-10-55-2) provides an illustration of financial statements and notes thereto for an entity operating under Chapter 11.
Prepetition liabilities, including claims that become known after a petition is filed, shall be reported on the basis of the expected amount of the allowed claims in accordance with Subtopic 450-20, as opposed to the amounts for which those allowed claims may be settled. Once these claims satisfy the accrual provisions of that Subtopic, they shall be recorded in the accounts in accordance with this paragraph. Paragraph
852-10-50-2 notes that claims not subject to reasonable estimation are required to be disclosed in the notes to financial statements.
Paragraph
852-10-45-4 addresses the separation of liabilities subject to compromise from those that are not.
Circumstances arising during reorganization proceedings may require a change in the classification of liabilities between those subject to compromise and those not subject to compromise. Liabilities not subject to compromise shall be further segregated into current and noncurrent classifications if the entity presents a classified balance sheet. It is not appropriate to defer professional fees and similar types of expenditures until the plan is confirmed and then reduce gain from debt discharge to the extent of the previously deferred expenses. It is also not appropriate to accrue professional fees and similar types of expenditures upon the filing of the Chapter 11 petition. Rather, because professional fees and similar types of expenditures directly relating to the Chapter 11 proceeding do not result in assets or liabilities, they shall be expensed as incurred and reported as reorganization items.
Interest expense shall be reported only to the extent that it will be paid during the proceeding or that it is probable that it will be an allowed priority, secured, or unsecured claim. Interest expense is not a reorganization item.
Interest income earned by an entity in Chapter 11 that it would not have earned but for the proceeding, normally all interest income, shall be reported as a reorganization item.
Consolidated financial statements that include one or more entities in reorganization proceedings and one or more entities not in reorganization proceedings shall include condensed combined financial statements of the entities in reorganization proceedings. The combined financial statements shall be prepared on the same basis as the consolidated financial statements.
The effects of a plan should be included in the entity's financial statements as of the date the plan is confirmed. However, inclusion shall be delayed to a date not later than the effective date if there is a material unsatisfied condition precedent to the plan's becoming binding on all the parties in interest or if there is a stay pending appeal. That might occur, for example, if obtaining financing for the plan or for the transfer of material assets to the debtor by a third party is a condition to the plan's becoming effective. Financial statements prepared as of the date after the parties in interest have approved a plan through the voting process, and issued after the plan has been confirmed by the court, shall report the effects of the plan if there are no material unsatisfied conditions.
If the reorganization value of the assets of the emerging entity immediately before the date of confirmation is less than the total of all postpetition liabilities and allowed claims, and if holders of existing voting shares immediately before confirmation receive less than 50 percent of the voting shares of the emerging entity, the entity shall adopt fresh-start reporting upon its emergence from Chapter 11. The loss of control contemplated by the plan must be substantive and not temporary. That is, the new controlling interest must not revert to the shareholders existing immediately before the plan was filed or confirmed.
Fresh-start financial statements prepared by entities emerging from Chapter 11 will not be comparable with those prepared before their plans were confirmed because they are, in effect, those of a new entity. Thus, comparative financial statements that straddle a confirmation date shall not be presented.
Regulatory agencies may require the presentation of predecessor financial statements. However, such presentations shall not be viewed as a continuum because the financial statements are those of a different reporting entity and are prepared using a different basis of accounting, and, therefore, are not comparable. Attempts to disclose and explain exceptions that affect comparability would likely result in reporting that is so unwieldy it would not be useful.
Example 2 (see paragraph
852-10-55-4) provides an illustration of fresh-start reporting and the related illustrative notes to financial statements.