Of the 15 finance companies and mortgage trusts that have gone broke or gone into administration over the last year or so 10 turned out to have a thin equity base, and probably thinner in reality than implied in prospectus disclosures.So the Australian Securities and Investments Commission will modify the eight additional disclosure requirements imposed on debenture issuers 18 months ago.The key change will be to require issuers to disclose a comparative equity ratio from the prior year, and also to exclude from their total assets any amounts owing to the issuer by related parties or associates of the issuer.There's still no suggestion by ASIC that debenture issuers meet any specific equity test, leaving it up to investors, working from improved disclosure, to evaluate the risks.The disclosure framework continues to utilise the "if not, why not" approach. This means is an issuer does not care to (or is unable to) disclose information required by ASIC - such as conformity to guidelines on the valuation of assets - it must spell out the reasons why in a prospectus.