Transparency and Disclosure
TABLE 7.1
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171
Financial reporting standards of select SIFs FREQUENCY OF FINANCIAL REPORTING
ACCOUNTING STANDARDS USED
AUDITOR
PUBLIC ACCESSIBILITY
Mixed capital
Quarterly unaudited financial statements and audited annual reports of portfolio companies available to investors
—
—
Annual report not available online; website contains list and description of fund investments.
Marguerite
Mixed capital
Quarterly and annual portfolio performance reports available to investors
IFRS
Deloitte
Annual report not available online; website contains list and description of fund investments.
National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (India)
Mixed capital
Quarterly fund reports for investors and the board; semiannual portfolio valuations by independent evaluator
Indian Accounting Standard
Ernst & Young
Annual report not available online; website contains list and description of fund investments.
Ireland Strategic Investment Fund
Public capital
Annual, consolidated as part of NTMA annual report, with quarterly publication of a more limited set of information
Financial Reporting Standard 102a
Government of Ireland Comptroller and Auditor General
NTMA annual report, including financial statements, available on the website.
Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority–Nigeria Infrastructure Fund
Public capital
Annual consolidated financial statements, with NSIA
IFRS
PricewaterhouseCoopers
NSIA annual report, including financial statements, available online.
FONSIS (Senegal)
Public capital
OHADA accounting system: Système Comptable OHADA
Ernst & Young and a local auditing firm
Annual report available online, without financial statements.
SIF
FUND TYPE
Asia Climate Partners
Monthly performance reports and quarterly portfolio reports for internal monitoring —
State audit by General State Inspectorate and the Court of Auditors
Sources: World Bank (see case studies in appendix A); Santiago Principles self-assessments; SIF websites. Note: FONSIS = Fonds Souverain d’Investissements Stratégiques (Sovereign Fund for Strategic Investments); IFRS = International Financial Reporting Standards; NIF = Nigeria Infrastructure Fund; NSIA = Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority; NTMA = National Treasury Management Agency; OHADA = Organisation pour l’harmonisation en Afrique du droit des affaires (Organization for the Harmonization of Corporate Law in Africa); SIF = strategic investment fund; — = not available. a. The financial reporting standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.
auditor general. Good practice also suggests publishing the independent audits of SIFs, but disclosure is purposeless if the party disclosing is not considered reliable (Wong 2009). External audits by a reputed firm are usually recommended because external auditors are independent and put their firm’s credibility on the line to vouch for the financials of the fund. Article 38.2 of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (Establishment, etc.) Act, 2011 (NSIA Act 2011), for instance, requires that an external audit of the SWF’s financial statements and operations must be conducted annually by an internationally recognized firm using IFRS as the accounting standard. Likewise, Khazanah’s financial statements are audited by an independent external auditor and submitted to the Companies Commission of Malaysia (Khazanah Nasional 2019). For public c apital SIFs, the public accountability element may dictate that the SIF be subject instead to public audits.26 NTMA’s financial statements, which include
