SUMMARY OF BOARD DECISIONS

Summary of Board decisions are provided for the information and convenience of constituents who want to follow the Board´s deliberations. All of the conclusions reported are tentative and may be changed at future Board meetings. Decisions are included in an Exposure Draft for formal comment only after a formal written ballot. Decisions in an Exposure Draft may be (and often are) changed in redeliberations based on information provided to the Board in comment letters, at public roundtable discussions, and through other communication channels. Decisions become final only after a formal written ballot to issue an Accounting Standards Update.

August 8, 2012 FASB Board Meeting

Investment property entities. The Board discussed various approaches to providing investment property guidance in light of feedback received on the proposed Accounting Standards Update, Real Estate—Investment Property Entities (Topic 973).

The Board decided to evaluate the progress of other projects on its agenda, such as the joint project on leases and the research project on the application of asset- or entity-based guidance to nonfinancial assets held in an entity, before making a final decision on investment property guidance. The Board, however, did tentatively decide to eliminate three of the approaches presented by the staff for future consideration (Alternatives 1, 2, and 4 in the meeting handout were eliminated by the Board). As a result, the investment property entity concept that was proposed in the Exposure Draft would not be part of any future guidance and the real estate investment trust (REIT) scope exception in Topic 946, Financial Services—Investment Companies, would be retained for equity REITs. Issues relevant to mortgage REITs will be discussed at a future meeting as part of the investment companies project.


Investment companies. The Board discussed whether entities regulated as investment companies under the SEC´s Investment Company Act of 1940 should be investment companies for accounting purposes.

The Board decided that an entity regulated as an investment company under the 1940 Act would be an investment company for accounting purposes and would not be required to assess whether it meets the required criteria and typical characteristics of an investment company.