The Financial Accounting Standards Board released an accounting standards update Monday to improve the requirements for identifying the accounting acquirer in business combinations such as mergers and acquisitions.
The update applies to Topic 805, Business Combinations, and Topic 810, Consolidations, in FASB’s Accounting Standards Codification, and is based on a recommendation of FASB’s Emerging Issues Task Force.
In a business combination, FASB noted, the determination of the accounting acquirer can significantly affect the carrying amounts of the combined entity’s assets and liabilities. The update will revise the current guidance for determining the accounting acquirer for a transaction effected primarily by exchanging equity interests in which the legal acquiree is a variable interest entity that meets the definition of a business. The amendments require an entity to consider the same factors that are currently required for determining which entity is the accounting acquirer in other acquisition transactions.
“The new ASU is the first recommendation from the recently reconstituted EITF to be issued as a final standard, and we thank the group for providing a path forward in making financial reporting in this area more comparable and decision useful for investors,” said FASB chair Richard Jones in a statement Monday.
The amendments are effective for all entities for annual reporting periods starting after Dec. 15, 2026, and interim reporting periods within those annual reporting periods. The amendments require an entity to apply the new guidance prospectively to any acquisition transaction that occurs after the initial application date. Early adoption is permitted as of the beginning of an interim or annual reporting period.
