Companies have used off-balance-sheet entities responsibly and irresponsibly for some time. These separate legal entities were permissible under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and tax laws so that companies could finance business ventures by transferring the risk of these ventures from the parent to the off-balance-sheet subsidiary. This was also helpful to investors who did not want to invest in these other ventures.

Since the Enron scandal, however, companies that have any kind of off-balance-sheet items, whether justifiably or not, are being branded with a scarlet letter "E". This article will define some typical off-balance-sheet items and discuss whether they are "good" or "bad".

The term "off-balance-sheet" can refer to many things. Typically, it refers to separate legal entities (separate companies of which the parent holds less than 100% ownership) or contingent liabilities such as letters of credit or loans to separate legal entities that are guaranteed by the parent. GAAP allows these items to be excluded from the parent's financial statements but usually they must be described in footnotes.

The Good
Off-balance-sheet companies were created to help finance new ventures. Theoretically, these separate companies were used to transfer the risk of the new venture from the parent to the separate company. This way, the parent could finance the new venture without diluting existing shareholders or adding to the parent's debt burden. These separate legal entities could be privately held partnerships or publicly traded spin-offs.

Sometimes the separate companies were created to pursue a business project that was a part of the parent's main line of business. For example, oil-drilling companies established off-balance-sheet subsidiaries as a way to finance oil exploration projects. These subsidiaries were jointly funded by the parent and outside investors who were willing to take the exploration risk. The parent company could have sold shares or borrowed the money directly, but the accounting and tax laws were designed to allow the project funding come from investors who were interested in investing in specific explorations rather than investing in the parent company.

Other times these separate companies were created to house businesses that were decidedly different from the parent's line of work (in order to unlock "value"). For example, Williams Co's, created Williams Communications to pursue the communications business. Williams Companies spun off Williams Communications, but the bankers required the parent to guarantee the debt of Williams Communications. Because Williams Communications was a new company, this is not an unusual request.

This use of off-balance-sheet entities is good in that it transfers risk from the parent's shareholders to others that were willing to take the business risk. Investors in Williams Companies (an energy resource company) may not have wanted to invest in a communications company, so management created a separate entity to house that business. Likewise, oil companies used off-balance-sheet entities to remove the exploration risk from their business to share it with others that wanted a bigger piece of the potential return from exploration.

The Bad
While GAAP and tax laws allow off-balance-sheet entities for valid reasons noted above, bad things happen when economic reality differs significantly from the assumptions that were used to justify the off-balance-sheet entity. Problems also occur when egos get too big.

In Williams's case, the decision to spin off the communications business was reasonable at the time. The parent had the infrastructure on which to build a communications network, but it was an energy company. By spinning off the subsidiary, it was not forcing its investors to take on the risk of a communications company, and it was able to take advantage of the market's demand for communication stocks. At the same time, the need to guarantee the debt of a new subsidiary is a reasonable request that bankers make in this type of transaction.

What went "wrong" was that economic reality differed from the assumptions that were used to justify the spin off. Dotcom mania resulted in over-capacity, causing problems for all telecommunications companies. The loan guarantee, which is never expected to be triggered, is now an issue for the company because of the recession and the slump in the telecommunications sector.

Enron exemplifies how ego can be the basis for the misuse of off-balance-sheet items. Here, off-balance-sheet vehicles appear to have been used to pump up financial results rather than for legitimate business purposes. What started as a plan to legitimately use off-balance-sheet vehicles morphed into ways to manufacture earnings as trades went bad. While one could argue that this is also a case of economic reality differing from expectations, the way management reacted to the situation allows us to classify it as an ego thing.

This financial engineering is usually fueled by the need to reach certain operating targets established by Wall Street or compensation plans. Once management succumbs to this "Dark Side", more time is spent on trying to game the system than trying to manage the core business. It is then only a matter of time before the house of cards falls.

The Ugly
It gets ugly when the markets start to punish a stock just because it has an off-balance-sheet item. Granted, it is not always easy to read a company's SEC filings, let alone dig into the footnotes and figure out how the off-balance-sheet items might impact results. But the companies that provide full disclosure will probably be the better investments.

Conclusion
The loss of faith in accounting's ability to provide full disclosure could have a bigger impact on the stock market than the events of September 11th. The attacks were an exogenous factor and we bounced back nicely. The loss of confidence in financial statements is an attack on one of the core elements of investment decision making. To quote Johnny Cochran, "If the statements aren't true, what will we do?"

However, the focus on off-balance-sheet accounting will have two major benefits. First, it will result in new regulations that will hopefully prevent future Enrons. Some of these changes will likely be the following:

• Prevention of officers of the parent from being officers of the off-balance-sheet subsidiary
  
• Increasing the percentage ownership by outside and non-affiliated companies
  
• Enforcing disclosure rules so that investors can clearly understand the risk (if any) posed by off-balance-sheet companies

Second, market over-reaction creates a buying opportunity. Markets always overreact, causing panic in the Street. Uncertainty created by the loss of faith in financial disclosures could even cause more damage to the market than extreme events like September 11th.

by Rick Wayman, (Contact Author | Biography)