Author:
The Pine Hill Group
Opus Connect NYC Private Equity Chapter Sponsor

Revenue Recognition for Private Equity
How an accounting standard can impact your deal

The new accounting standard for revenue recognition (ASC 606), which goes into effect early next year for privately held companies is just an accounting change, right? Not at all. It could prompt private equity firms to adjust the way they project the growth of portfolio companies and revise the way they market those companies for sale. The goal of the standard is to create a comprehensive revenue recognition model that is agnostic to all industries and capital markets and increases comparability of companies’ financial statements. To do so, it ties the recognition of revenue more closely to when control of a product or service is transferred to a customer. Depending on the type of company, that could mean big changes to key financial metrics and ratios, including EBITDA, and could impact the financials in ways that could have an impact on debt covenant compliance, taxes, mergers and acquisition activity, and other exit strategies such as IPOs.