Moody’s Warns Lease Accounting Delays Will Harm Investors

Investors and analysts lose out if U.S. accounting rulemakers further delay when private companies adopt major new lease accounting rules, Moody’s Investors Service said.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s “eleventh-hour” move to offer private companies an extra year—until 2021—to report leases on their balance sheets will hinder investors’ ability to compare the financial health of similar companies like Office Depot, Inc., a public company, versus Staples, Inc., which is privately held, Moody’s said in an Aug. 19 report.

“They’re focused on talking about private companies being these really small, unsophisticated companies that can’t keep up with these complex accounting standards, ...