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Edward E. Nusbaum has spent 30 years with Grant Thornton, LLP, and currently serves as CEO and executive partner. Effective January 1, 2010, he will serve as CEO of Grant Thornton International. He is also a member of the board of governors for the Center for Audit Quality and served on the SECs Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting in 2008. He was interviewed at the Pace University Lubin Forum on Contemporary Accounting Issues on April 30, 2009, by David Reilly, a columnist with Bloomberg News and former reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
Why Move to IFRS?
David Reilly: Unlike the Big Four, Grant Thornton has more midsized and small companies. When you 're talking with your clients, many of which don t have extensive international operations, are you hearing a groundswell saying, "We want IFRS now!"?
Edward E. Nusbaum: I don't think there is a grounds well coming from Main Street But there is a demand, certainly, as more small and midsized companies have operations overseas. They are cognizant of the issue and they're concerned about it I tiiink most Main Street companies would prefer, if we're going to make a switch, just to make it all at once and be done with it.
Reilly: If you don 't hear investors saying, "This is definitely what we need to do right now," why are you in favor of making a move?
Nusbaum: From an investor standpoint you have to look at the bigger issues. And I don't tiiink we've done an adequate job of looking at it from the investor perspective. Maybe by 2011 we'll do that. Certainly, if you're a foreign investor and you want to invest in U.S. companies, you'd like to see them on IFRS. If you're a U.S. investor and you're comparing a U.S. company with a foreign company, it would be easier if the U.S. was on IFRS, so you could be comparing apples with apples.
But if you're a U.S. investor and you're only going to invest in U.S. companies, what's the benefit to you? I don't think we really have a good answer to that yet.
I think one of the reasons you don't have a hue and cry from investors today is they don't...