Listen up: New accounting rule could slam your bottom line

I have a lot of friends inside the National Retail Tenants Association. It’s a group I’ve long been affiliated with and, quite frankly, I’ve seen first-hand what learning to read a lease can deliver to the retail bottom line.

But did you know that something pretty major is amok? That the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is right now in the process of developing a new lease accounting standard that is expected to impact retail lease accounting in a huge way?

In fact, those in the know say that the new standard, whose objective is to capitalize all material leases on lessees’ books and is targeted for completion by 2011, is estimated to negatively impact retailers’ earnings by an average of 5% in the first year alone.

I won’t go into all the fine details – not exactly blog material – but suffice it to say that this is something to learn more about. The NRTA is hosting a webinar on the subject on Wednesday, March 3, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. EST. For details and registration procedures, visit retailtenants.org.