Conversion to IFRS: Toll Holdings & Pacific National

The Issue

Toll Holdings, together with their rail venture Pacific National is now established as the largest transport and logistics provider in Australia and New Zealand. As a rapidly expanding corporation, the initial conversion and on-going compliance with the complex International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) provided a significant challenge which needed to be addressed. In order to facilitate the initial transition and on-going support in a manner which ensured appropriate ownership and decision making was retained in-house an innovative solution was sought.

Our Approach

In order to meet the critical objectives of the client, a secondment model was initially proposed and adopted to fulfil the roles of strategic project manager and trusted technical adviser. Throughout the course of the extended conversion process this provided Toll and Pacific National with direct access to the firm’s network of specialists and intellectual property in a cost effective manner. Following on from this, the knowledge of the business and relationships developed has enabled the client to efficiently deploy PwC teams across a range of critical task areas, most recently to provide the suite of cross border project management, taxation, valuations and accounting assistance on the combined $8 billion purchase price allocation for Patrick Corporation and SembCorp Logistics.

The Outcome

The end results stemming from this continuing relationship are sound accounting outcomes, closely aligned to the commercial objectives of the organisation and an on-going platform for real time technical insight and assistance.