Accounting Valuation Of Foreign Investment

the case of the National Telephone Company of Spain and the net amount invested (1924-1932)

Abstract

It has been particularly important the contribution of foreign investment in the industrial modernization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Spain. However, in this period Accounting History literature has paid little attention to accounting practices related to the valuation of foreign investment and especially to state concessions.

Accordingly, the objective of the paper is to describe the practices and expose the criticisms of the accounting valuation of the named "net amount invested" by "National Telephone Company of Spain" (CTNE), a subsidiary of the American "International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation" (ITT). The analysis is conducted from the beginning of the state-granted monopoly provided 1924, during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, until 1932, when the Second Republic pushed through a bill to cancel the concession.

The results of the study identified the accounting practices of the net amount invested undertaken by the CTNE and its disclosure in the annual report. Also, the main criticisms among contemporaries are discussed, highlighting the inadequate accounting depreciation of the telephone infrastructure, the capitalization of certain tax expenses and the overvaluation of some infrastructure assets at the time of acquisition.