Group financial statements ought to abide by the rules laid out in Schedule 3. The group, consisting of all consolidated undertakings, should be treated as a single company with necessary alterations to consider differences between group and entity financial statements.

Specifically, any subsidiaries of the holding company not covered in the group financial statements will be recognised as a subgroup. If the holding company turns out to be a subsidiary itself, then the 'group' will be recognised as a subgroup of any holding undertaking of the holding company.

The group balance sheet and group profit and loss account should fully consolidate the information from the separate balance sheets and profit and loss accounts of the holding company and subsidiaries. This should be done subject to various adjustments as per this Schedule and recognised accounting practices.

• If the financial year of a subsidiary and that of the holding company differs, group financial statements should be made from the either the subsidiary's statements, provided its financial year ended no more than three months before the holding company's and important events are considered, or from interim statements made by the subsidiary at the end of the holding's company financial year.

In the context of non-controlling interests, while applying Balance Sheet Formats 1 and 2 from Schedule 3, a separate item called 'Non-controlling Interests' should be displayed after specific items. This item represents the amount share capital and reserves attributable to shares in subsidiary undertakings held by persons other than the holding company and its subsidiaries.

In the Profit and Loss Account Formats 1 and 2 from Schedule 3 applied to group financial statements, the profit or loss for the year should be attributed between amounts due to 'Non-controlling Interests' and equity holders of the holding company.

Further adjustments to group financial statements using the formats in Schedule 3 should be made. Particularly, the items "Participating interests" in the Balance Sheet Formats and "Income from participating interests" in the Profit and Loss Account Formats need to be divided into the categories "Interests in associated undertakings" and "Other participating interests".