In a survey of 75 fund managers responsible for managing funds worth more that £2 trillion – approximately half of the market – Big Four firm Pricewaterhouse-Coopers found that almost two thirds believed IFRS had improved company reporting. A similar percentage of the fund managers (59%) supported the introduction of fair value accounting.

The support for IFRS in the fund management community is in stark contrast to the feelings of leading FTSE 350 FDs and executives.

Kevin O’ Byrne, the group finance director of DSGi, which owns PC World, told Accountancy Age that IFRS increased costs, but added ‘no value whatsoever’ to business.

‘Anything that adds cost and complexity to the business is clearly not welcome,’ O’Byrne said. ‘I would rather we were spending time focused on things like the performance of our Greek subsidiary rather than the accounting of our Greek subsidiary.’

Stuart Bridges, FD of FTSE 250 insurer Hiscox, himself a former fund manager, said it was ‘difficult’ to keep an eye on a company because of the demands of IFRS on management’s time.

Meanwhile, Lord Browne, the chief executive of BP, said the standards made accounts difficult to understand and failed to hold management accountable.

‘Some would argue that IFRS neither produces a record of the accountability of management, nor a measure of the changes in the economic value of assets and liabilities. I would agree with them,’ Browne said.

But despite the criticisms of IFRS raised by management teams, fund managers believe that company boards have managed the transition to the standards competently.

The PwC research found that four fifths of the fund managers believed that the management teams had coped with the accounting overhaul very or fairly well.

The fund managers also felt they were developing a better understanding of IFRS numbers.

Over half of the respondents said their knowledge of the standards had improved, and more than a third said that the conversion to IFRS had influenced a decision to invest or divest from a company.

Ian Dilks, head of IFRS conversions at PwC, said the research suggested that fund managers were becoming more confident when analysing IFRS accounts and had taken a positive attitude to the new accounting standards.

‘The indications are that the first sets of full year-end IFRS accounts have generally been seen as a useful aid in helping fund managers make decisions about the companies in which they invest,’ Dilks said.

These positive sentiments aside, Dilks said the real reason for fund manager support for IFRS could be the benefits of international comparability, rather than the actual thinking behind the standards.

Overall, Dilks said, the jury was still out on whether UK GAAP was more useful than IFRS.

COMPANY REPORTS

FTSE 100

Malcolm Wyman, the finance director of brewer SABMiller, saw his pay for 2006 breach the £1m mark as his total package increased from £857,296 in 2005 to £1.18m. Wyman’s salary increased from £450,000 to £525,000 and he picked up a £560,000 bonus. The rest of his package was made up by expense allowances of £1,100 and £94,639 in benefits. During the 2006 financial year revenues climbed from $12.9bn (£7.08bn) in 2005 to $15.3bn. EBITDA was up 23% to £2.9bn. But pre-tax profits were 4% lower at £2.4bn as a result of exceptional UStax charges. Over the last three year’s SABMiller’s share pricehas tripled.

FTSE 250

WS Atkin’s effective tax rate for the year ended 31 March 2006 was down to 29.6% from31.4% the previous year. The infrastructure company said its rate was lower because of a greater contribution from itsin overseas operations in lower tax regimes.

FTSE small cap

Martin Lamaison, the departing group finance director of Oxford Instruments, has soldoff a chunk of share options. Lamaison sold 66,000 shares at no cost and released a further 56,000 shares at 202.50p to pocket £113,000. Lamaison will retire in early August and be succeeded by Kevin Boyd, currently the finance director of Radstone Technology.

Music company Sanctuary was forced to warn the market that it is expecting to report an underlying loss of between £17m and £22m. The losses are a result of delays in disposingof non-core assets and slow trading in the company’s recorded product division. Chief executive Frank Presland said that management was ‘in the process of agreeing budgets for fiscal 2007’. Presland replaced Andy Taylor, who was forced to resign after an FRRP probe into Sanctuary’s accounting practices.