The 2024 AMT Annual Report Is here and, yes, it’s still Enron’s fault

Those of you who attended the 2025 AMT AGM or watched the recording will already be aware that AMT has beef with the long defunct Texan energy giant Enron.

But for those of you who missed out on the epic story of how a 25-year-old monster accounting fraud echoed down through the ages to make AMT’s financial position look way more precarious than it really is, we have prepared this short presentation.

Of course, if you’re not a Star Wars fan, you can just read the 2024 Annual Report instead.

May the force be with you!

Scroll down for an accessibility PS

We are not sure whether our special presentation is accessible so here is the text.

A long time ago in a finance system far, far away …

Episode LVIII The Income Strikes Back

A tiny Australian not-for-profit association, noble in mission but humble in means, faithfully collects its membership fees and records them as income. It is a time of beige monitors, fax machines, dial-up internet modems, and budgets built in Excel before colour coding was cool.

The idea of deferring revenue was but a whispered myth, a dark accounting prophecy that no one believed would come true.

Peace reigned.

But across the seas, in the shimmering towers of Wall Street, a dark force rises …

The ENRON EMPIRE, master of illusion, conjured future profits out of thin air using an arcane spell of special purpose entities and aggressive revenue recognition.

Through a shadowy network of off-ledger partnerships with names like DEATH STAR CAPITAL and JEDI TRUST HOLDINGS, they created the illusion of infinite growth without a single dollar changing hands.

Whispers in the Galactic Audit Office claimed they even tried to classify Ewoks as “independent forestry consultants”, citing a shell entity registered on Endor.

One memo, later recovered in the wreckage, referenced a proposed deduction for “tribal security services and treehouse maintenance”.

The deception ran so deep, some investors believed R2-D2 was the CFO.

For a while, the empire dazzles investors with phantom earnings. But the illusion cannot last.

In a thunderous collapse of lawsuits and shredded documents, Enron falls. Trust in accounting, once a force for good, was plunged into darkness. The accounting order is thrown into chaos.

From the ashes, the wise elders of the International Accounting Standards Board and their Australian allies at the AASB rise up. They forge two powerful artefacts:

AASB 15 – Revenue from Contracts with Customers
AASB 1058 – Income of Not-for-Profit Entities

These sacred scrolls, inscribed in the language of compliance, declared:

“Revenue shall not be recognised until the performance obligation is fulfilled.”

Thus began the New Accounting Order.

Suddenly, the small humble association must change everything.

Membership fees, once recorded with a grateful shrug, are now liabilities. Payments in December for services in January? They belong not to the past but to the future.

Confusion spreads. The company secretary weeps. The spreadsheets grow complex. But it’s 2025 so at least we have colour coding now.

Slowly, methodically, painstakingly, wisdom prevails. Order is restored. Revenue is aligned with reality.

And so, the little not-for-profit lived financially ever after: cautious, compliant, and forever slightly bitter about Enron.