BC289 The Board deliberated this project jointly with the FASB. US GAAP has had comprehensive accounting guidance for investment companies for many years (contained in Topic 946 Investment Companies). By deliberating this project jointly, the boards hoped to achieve as similar guidance as possible. To that end, they came up with similar definitions of investment entities and guidance on how to assess investment entity status.

BC290 However, the scope of the project was different for the IASB and the FASB. The IASB's Investment Entities project started during the deliberations on the Consolidations project and was only intended to provide an exception to consolidation for investment entities. The FASB was seeking to improve and converge the definition of an investment company with that of the IASB because it already has comprehensive accounting and reporting guidance for investment companies.

BC291 While the boards reached many common decisions, as a result of this scope difference, and other jurisdictional differences, the IASB and the FASB came to different decisions in a number of areas. These include:

(a) whether there should be a requirement that an investment entity measure and evaluate substantially all of its investments on a fair value basis rather than identifying such an activity as a typical characteristic of an investment entity;