A recent study carried out by Grant Thornton New Zealand highlights the disconnect between retirement village reported profitability and actual cash flow performance. A major culprit is the application of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), particularly IFRS 13 – Fair Value Measurement, which governs the valuation of investment property. Financial reporting relief for this conundrum may be on the horizon by way of the newly issued standard IFRS 18 – Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements when it comes into effect in 2027.
Under IFRS 13, retirement village operators are required to measure investment property—typically the independent living units occupied by residents—at fair value. This fair value includes not only the physical property but also the right to receive future cash flows, such as deferred management fees (DMFs) and capital gains on unit resales. These future cash flows are often non-cash items at the time of recognition, yet they are included in the income statement as unrealised gains. This means operators end up reporting substantial profits even though the actual cash inflows are often influenced by resident turnover and could occur several years into the future.
The application of IFRS 13 can mislead stakeholders about the financial and operational performance of retirement villages due to the disconnect between reported net profit after tax (NPAT) and the business’s actual cashflows. This reliance on fair value gains can distort profitability and not fully reflect cashflow challenges such as rising operating costs or delayed unit turnover.
And, while there is scope for organisations to define their own management performance measures (MPMs), they still have to reconcile their reporting back to GAAP. This requirement ensures transparency with what is being captured by the MPM and to allow a degree of consistency and comparability between organisations.
Enter IFRS 18, a potential hero in the often-maligned world of accounting standards.
IFRS 18 replaces IAS 1; in addition to its more structured and transparent approach to the presentation of financial statements, one of its key features is the possibility to disclose management-defined performance measures (MPMs). For retirement village owners, this means they can present alternative profit metrics that better reflect their operational reality, such as underlying profit alongside NPAT. While village operators currently can (and do) report such MPMs like EBIT, being able to align these to an accounting standard will ensure consistency and comparability across the sector.
IFRS 18 also mandates clearer classification and division of income and expenses, which helps users of financial statements distinguish between operating results and fair value adjustments. This change is particularly beneficial for retirement village operators, as it enables them to isolate the impact of IFRS 13-driven fair value gains from their core business performance.
The alignment between the statement of profit or loss and the cash flow statement under IFRS 18 also improves transparency. By requiring entities to explain the relationship between reported profit and cash flows, stakeholders gain a more accurate picture of financial sustainability.
Grant Thornton’s research reveals it can take more than 20 years for the owner of an average retirement village to fully recover their investment – a story not often told in the ongoing commentary about the sector. With increasing calls for greater regulation in the industry, achieving a clearer, more transparent understanding of its financial position is mission critical.
