In February 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-02 ( “ASC 842”), Leases, which provides new guidelines that change the accounting for leasing arrangements.

The new lease accounting standard ASC 842 is effective for public companies beginning January 1^st, 2019. The primary purpose of the standard was to address the fact that most operating leases are deemed off balance sheet financing arrangements and currently are only disclosed via a company’s financial footnotes in the “Commitments and Contingencies” footnote.