The Effect of the IFRS 16 : Constructive Capitalization of Operating Leases in the Turkish Retailing Sector

The new International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 16 issued by the International Accounting Standards Board will significantly change accounting for leases. The most important issue is that operating leases beyond one year will be capitalized, which means Off-The-Balance Sheet (OBS) financing via operating lease is effectively eliminated. “IFRS 16: Leases” will fundamentally change the way that leases are accounted for and reported in financial statements. This paper tries to illustrate the impact of IFRS 16 on financial statements and financial ratios. The study is an ex ante research, simulating a predicted outcome of the new lease standard, which will be in effect after 1 January 2019. For this purpose, this research is applied to the Turkish retailing companies whose shares are publicly traded in the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The study uses the constructive capitalization method for these companies. The results indicate that new standard will have a statistically significant effect on some of the financial ratios tested (debt/asset, debt/equity, return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE)) for 2010–2013