International Market: Qantas Segments

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1.
Overview
According to Shanahan (2011), Qantas Limited’s annual reports do not provide complete and extensive information required by external users for investment decision-making. Particularly, in the year 2005 there had been a change in the segment reporting of Qantas where the segments were based on risk and return factors as per AASB 114. However, from 1 January 2009 AASB 8 a more principle-based approach replaced AASB 114. The critical change in the standard was the definition of segment changed to a management approach, which requires an entity to disclose information separately that the chief operating decision maker (CODM) uses internally to assess segment performance (AASB 8.5 2009).

For the year ended 30 June 2011, Qantas Group (2011b ) had 5 operating segments Qantas, Jetstar, Qantas freight, Qantas frequent flyer and Jetset Travelworld group. Shanahan’s (2011) main concern was the lack of information given to the external users about the loss in the international operations and believes that as it is a key area of business it would have been analytically evaluated by the CODM. Therefore, conferring to AASB 8.5 (2009) this material should be independently provided in the annual reports as an operating segment. Absence of essential information will reduce investor confidence in the ‘credibility of financial reporting’ (Kothari 2000). The transparency of information will assist current and potential shareholders make better investment decisions that will in turn benefit the company as a whole. For instance Qantas Group (2012 ) showed a loss of $21 million in the Qantas segment due to the weak functioning of its international market. Additionally, the Qantas Group’s (2012 ) annual report mentions the international tr...

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...009 the focus of top management has been to recover from losses in the international segment, which finally lead to the implementation of the transformation plan in 2011. The transformation lead to positive changes such as achieving highest level of customer satisfaction since 2008 and a drastic drop in international losses (Qantas Group 2013 ).
Moreover, Qantas had been pushing for a debt guarantee from the government to compete with Virgin Australia, it seemed like an ideal scheme to divide the Qantas segment into international and domestic to show clearer and improved performance to external users and attract investors as there was a small possibility of debt guarantee (Freed 2013). Recent refusal of the debt guarantee and the likelihood of change in Qantas Sales Act, the improved disclosure will benefit foreign investors make investment decisions (Klan 2014).

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