Ralph Lauren’s Financials Get A Facelift
This morning, a non-reliance 8-K was filed by private investment trust on its results from fiscal 2001 to 2004 and the first three quarters of fiscal 2005, for a couple of reasons. One, fairly common; the other, kind of surprising, by this time.
Let’s start with the mundane first. (After all, we have the weekend to look forward to. It’s Friday! Work first, pleasure later.) Polo Ralph has a retail presence, which should make the alert reader think of … leases. Yes, leases. It seems that the company had received construction allowances from lessons, and netted them against the dollars spent on leasehold improvements – not the way it’s supposed to be done. And Polo Ralph also accounted for rent escalation clauses incorrectly, too.
Pretty common stuff, in the last few months. Maybe the only surprise about this restatement issue is that it’s so late in the game; the lease restatement mean culpa pretty much died down over a month ago.
It’s the second restatement issue that’s really long in the tooth, one that involves the much-despised FIN 46(R). This is the interpretation of the accounting rules on consolidation that required companies to figure out which party with an …
Read More