标的企业业绩承诺与并购方商誉减值——盈余管理和审计质量的调节作用

以2011-2020年A股上市公司中签订业绩承诺协议的定向增发并购重组事件为样本，研究标的企业业绩承诺对并购方商誉减值的影响，考察盈余管理及审计质量对二者关系的调节作用。结果显示：（1）标的企业业绩承诺激进程度与并购方商誉减值正相关，业绩承诺实现程度与商誉减值负相关，即目标方业绩承诺设置越激进、完成情况越差，并购方商誉减值规模越大。（2）商誉减值存在着并购双方盈余管理的机会主义行为，其中标的企业的盈余管理行为会强化业绩承诺激进程度与商誉减值的正向关系，而并购方的盈余管理行为会抑制业绩承诺实现程度与商誉减值规模的负相关关系。（3）审计质量会弱化业绩承诺激进程度与商誉减值的正向关系以及业绩承诺实现程度与商誉减值规模的负向关系，即提高审计质量能够抑制标的企业的业绩承诺激进行为和并购方利用商誉减值“洗大澡”的行为，降低并购方的商誉减值风险。（4）进一步研究发现，目标方参与公司治理具有两面性，即目标方股东担任收购方的董事、监事或高管，一方面会推高标的企业的业绩承诺水平，另一方面会激励标的企业努力完成承诺业绩，对收购方的商誉减值风险产生正反两种影响。     

业绩预告信息对分析师预测行为有影响吗

本文考察了业绩预告披露的形式、精度等特征对分析师跟踪数量、预测误差和预测分歧度的影响,实证结果发现:相对于定性业绩预告,发布定量业绩预告的公司以及闭区间宽度较小的公司其跟踪的分析师数量较多,预测误差和分歧度也较低。这些结果意味着,作为一个重要的信息来源,上市公司业绩预告的形式和质量显著影响了分析师的预测行为。研究结论不仅有助于监管部门了解业绩预告政策对资本市场参与者的现实影响,而且也为业绩预告是否影响投资者行为的相关研究提供了新的经验证据。     

独立审计、公司外部治理与真实经营业绩——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

独立审计是公司治理的重要外部机制,但考察独立审计治理功能影响公司真实经营业绩的文献还较少。从减少信息不对称、提升治理效率与决策能力角度,提出了一个独立审计的公司外部治理功能影响公司真实经营业绩的理论框架。选取事务所规模、审计收费和审计意见作为审计质量的替代变量,以我国2007年-2009年上市公司为样本,实证研究发现事务所规模及审计收费均与公司真实经营业绩正相关;审计意见对公司滞后一年的真实经营业绩没有影响,这可能与我国监管及诉讼制度不完善导致＂非标＂意见未给公司及其内部人带来显著成本有关。     

EVA业绩评价系统

企业经营业绩评价是当今世界企业界和会计界的一个重大课题。对投资来说，企业业绩的最终表现应该是投资投入资本价值的增加。因此，衡量企业经营业绩的关键之一是正确衡量投资对企业的投入的价值。投资对企业的投入表现为资产的价值，这一价值可以用三种方法衡量，即帐面价值、经济价值和市场价值。对于企业资产价值的不同衡量方法，也就产生了不同的业绩评价指标，即利润指标、经济增加值（EVA）指标和修正的增加值（REVA）指标。     

定向增发中的会计业绩效应与财务分析师信息预示

本文以2007-2013年907家定向增发公司为研究样本,考察了定向增发对资源使用效益衡量指标净资产收益率(ROE)与用之于市场决策转化指标每股收益(EPS)之间逻辑关系的影响,以及考察了定向增发环境下财务分析师对增发公司业绩变化的预示能力。研究发现,定向增发存在"EPS业绩效应",即在ROE下降情形下,随着定向增发规模的增大,公司EPS会越来越高。这为解释定向增发存在短期正向宣告效应长期回报不佳现象提供了新思路。尽管定向增发通常意味着信息不对称程度更高,但我们研究发现财务分析师盈余预测调整与公司EPS变化基本一致,并且其预测向上调整预示了定向增发公司有一个更好的未来会计业绩,这表明财务分析师预测活动可作为公司管理层信息披露的替代。     

审计独立性 会计信息质量与市场反应

会计盈余信息有用性的研究都是以无差别的审计服务和盈余作为现金流的替代指标为前提的。本文放宽了这些假设,通过模型建立、实证研究,经验地研究了审计独立性与市场反应的关系。研究结果发现,除非预期盈余具有信息含量外,审计意见具有增量的信息含量,尤其是非标审计意见的影响。     

股权分置改革、经理薪酬与会计业绩敏感度

本文选取了2002--2006年沪深交易所上市公司会计业绩指标、盈余管理指标与公司高管层年度薪酬数据，对股改前后中国上市公司会计业绩与经理薪酬之间的敏感度变化进行检验，并考察上市公司经理薪酬与盈余管理变量相关关系在股改前后的变化。结果发现，股改后经理行为对会计业绩敏感性增强，公司长期发展的会计业绩变量回归系数及显著性水平显著提高，公司治理机制得到改善。在对股改前后的分组数据进行整体回归后发现，非操纵性应计利润与操纵性应计利润对经理薪酬都存在显著正相关关系，并且股改后的显著性水平较股改前有所提高。净资产指标在经理薪酬契约中的显著性水平在股改后有所下降，公司所有者正在经历由账面价值最大化向市场价值最大化转变的过程。     

企业并购影响高管薪酬业绩敏感性吗?——基于中国国有上市公司的实证分析

本文以中国沪深股市2006-2010年间作为买方发生并购行为的362个国有上市公司为研究对象,分析了公司并购行为对高管薪酬与公司业绩的敏感度的影响。研究发现,公司资产回报率、市场回报率与公司高管薪酬显著正相关。说明并购前,高管薪酬与资产回报率以及市场回报率显著正相关,即高管薪酬与公司业绩敏感度较高。并购所增加的会计业绩和市场业绩与高管薪酬在10%的水平下显著负相关。可见,企业并购显著降低了高管薪酬与公司资产回报率以及市场回报率的业绩敏感度。并购规模无论是通过会计绩效还是市场绩效检验分析,都显著与高管薪酬正相关,说明高管薪酬与并购规模的扩大显著正相关。为进一步分析并购绩效是否会影响高管薪酬变动,本文采用差分模型分析了高管薪酬变化值与并购业绩变化值和并购规模变化的关系,研究发现,高管薪酬的变化与并购绩效无显著的相关关系,而与并购增加的公司规模显著正相关。     

股市对业绩预告修正一视同仁吗？

本文搜集我国A股上市公司2002年至2011年间发布的所有业绩预告修正公告中董事会披露的业绩修正原因说明,首次系统地分析了我国独特的业绩预告制度下的业绩修正原因如何影响股市投资者对业绩修正的判断。研究结果显示,公司解释业绩预告变动原因时带有倾向性,公司对利好消息和利空消息的解释会倾向于不同的原因,而且业绩变动原因对股市投资人理解业绩预告有重大的影响。如果公司将原因归于公司不可控的宏观原因、不可控的会计因素和会计记账错误,股市对利好的业绩修正反应更强烈,也能削弱利空消息对股市的打击程度。如果是其它原因或公司不说明原因,股市的反应会更加糟糕。本文为资本市场投资者了解业绩修正原因说明的经济后果提供了实证证据。     

高管校友关系与业绩预测披露行为

本文考察高管对个人社会关系的依赖是否对上市公司的信息环境产生冲击;具体的,本文系统论证了高管校友关系和上市公司信息披露的重要载体—管理层业绩预测之间的关系.结果显示,当公司与其供应商的高管之间存在校友关系或校友关系更广泛时,公司发布管理层业绩预测的概率和频数均显著下降,即高管校友一定程度上取代了业绩预测,成为了供应链上的信息流通渠道.进一步分析显示,当公司的私有信息成本较高或经营环境更不确定时,校友关系对业绩预测的替代作用更强;而当供应商议价能力较强时,这种替代作用显著下降.此外,本文发现高管校友关系也显著降低了业绩预测发布的自愿性和及时性.最后,本文发现校友关系引起的业绩预测披露减少,削弱了外部信息使用者获取公司层面信息的程度,表现为股价同步性和分析师预测分歧度加大.本文结果表明,高管对个人社会关系的依赖降低了上市公司的信息环境质量,可能使中小投资者处于更弱势的地位,一定程度上损害了市场公平性.本文将个人社会关系的经济影响拓展到信息环境领域,为社会关系如何影响公开信息披露行为提供了新的经验证据.     

Do goodwill impairments affect audit opinions? Evidence from China

There has been a steady growth of goodwill impairments in the Chinese stock market since the adoption of the impairment approach in accounting. The influence of goodwill impairments on a firm’s financial position and profitability give reason to doubt its current and future performance. We examine whether auditors, as a crucial external monitor, identify the information risks of goodwill impairments and express their concerns about financial reporting quality in their audit opinions. Using a sample of firms listed on China’s A-share market from 2007 to 2017, we test the association between goodwill impairments and the type of audit opinion received in the same financial period. Our findings are as follows. First, the probability of receiving a modified opinion increases with the amount of goodwill impairments. Second, the positive association between goodwill impairments and modified audit opinions is driven primarily by earnings management risks. Third, this positive association is more salient when auditors are industry experts and there is no auditor–client mismatch. Fourth, auditors are more sensitive to the amount of goodwill impairments than to their mere existence. Overall, we document that auditors perceive goodwill impairments as a signal of information risks and communicate their concerns to investors to avoid litigation.     

An Investigation of Auditors’ Judgments When Companies Release Earnings Before Audit Completion

The majority of U.S. public companies release annual earnings prior to the completion of audit fieldwork. We investigate this phenomenon in a controlled experiment with audit partners and senior managers. We find that releasing earnings before completion of the audit pressures auditors to adopt the goals of management, thereby reducing the likelihood of post‐announcement audit‐adjustment recommendations. We also examine the effect of audit committee (AC) strength in improving auditors’ judgments after annual earnings are released. When ACs are actively involved in accounting issues and proactively communicating with auditors—characteristics currently lacking in most ACs—the negative effects on auditors’ judgments are completely mitigated. Our study provides evidence on potential unintended consequences of early release of earnings and the importance of investing in high‐quality ACs to mitigate adverse effects of client pressures on audit judgment and financial reporting quality.     

The reform of accounting standards and audit pricing

This paper focuses on the reform of accounting standards in China in 2007 and investigates its impact on equilibrium pricing in the audit market. We find that the concentration of the audit market and the probability of issuing modified audit opinions do not significantly change, but that audit fees increase significantly after the adoption of the new accounting standards in China. Deeper analysis suggests that (1) the implementation of the new IFRS-based Chinese Accounting Standards (CASs) has increased the market risk faced by listed firms and thus auditors’ expected audit risk, causing an increase in audit fees, and (2) the degree of the increase in audit fees is positively related to the adjusted difference between net income according to the old CAS before 2007 and the new CAS after 2007. We thus conclude that the reform has had a significant impact on audit pricing in China.     

Client importance and audit partner independence

We use data from Taiwan where audit partners are required to sign audit reports to examine whether audit partners compromise their independence for economically important clients. Uniquely, we include both listed and unlisted clients in audit partners’ client portfolios and separately study these clients for Big N and non-Big N auditors. We employ multiple proxies for auditor independence, including various abnormal accruals measures, the propensity of audit partners to issue modified audit opinions, and the probability that clients meet or just beat earnings targets. We fail to find evidence that Big N audit partners compromise their independence for economically important clients; however, we find such evidence for non-Big N auditors. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity analyses. While our inferences are limited to the Taiwanese capital market, our study may be of interest to market participants and regulators in other well developed capital markets.     

The Effect of IPO Risks on Auditors’ Decisions: Auditor Designation Case

This study examines the effect of audit risks in the Korean initial public offering (IPO) market on the designated auditors’ decisions. The Korean External Audit Act requires firms to switch from incumbent to new auditors designated by the Securities and Futures Commission after the firm announces a future IPO. This study shows the effects of audit risks by examining if the quality of reported earnings and audit fees significantly differs between IPO‐eligible and IPO‐ineligible firms. Empirical tests first show that discretionary accruals are significantly lower for IPO‐ineligible firms than for IPO‐eligible firms in both the IPO designation period and the following review period. We interpret this result to mean that designated auditors evaluate the IPO‐ineligible (and eventually failed) firms’ listing possibility as low. Second, audit fees are higher for IPO‐ineligible firms in the auditor designation period. This reflects the fact that designated auditors are exposed to future audit risks associated with firms’ post‐IPO financial market troubles if IPO‐ineligible firms attempt to go public. Our study contributes to IPO‐related research by showing the effects of auditors’ risk evaluation on discretionary accruals and audit fees. This study also contributes to accounting policymaking regarding auditor independence.     

Former auditors on the audit committee and earnings management: Evidence from African banks

This paper investigates whether former auditors on the audit committee constrain earnings management through loan loss provisions. Based on an analysis of the annual reports of 82 African listed banks over the period 2011–2016, findings show that the presence of former auditors on an audit committee is associated with lower earnings management. This result suggests that audit committee members with auditing expertise and background contribute to effective monitoring of management’s accounting practices. Furthermore, results reveal that the reducing effect on earnings management of former auditors is strongest for directors who are unaffiliated with the bank’s current external auditor.     

Earnings volatility and audit report lag

This study investigates whether earnings volatility influences audit report lag. If auditors view earnings volatility as affecting risk, and adjust effort in response to risk, we expect earnings volatility to impact audit report lag. Using a sample of 13,075 firm-year observations over the period 2004–2015, we find a negative relation between earnings volatility and audit report lag, consistent with auditors responding to less volatile earnings with increased effort. We also find that the association between earnings volatility and audit report lag is driven by non-industry-specialist auditors, auditors with short tenure, and small and medium sized auditor offices. Furthermore, we examine whether earnings management conducted by way of earnings smoothing affects our results. We find that low earnings volatility has a stronger impact on increasing audit report lag when there is a high degree of earnings smoothing     

政府控制对审计质量的双重影响

本文从上市公司和会计事务所的产权性质与区域属性的角度,研究了政府控制对审计质量的影响。研究发现,国有企业和本地会计事务所审计的公司的盈余管理水平较低;而较低的盈余管理水平能够降低审计师出具非标意见的概率;同时,国有企业在控制了盈余管理水平的情况下,其得到非标意见的概率相对要低。研究结果表明,政府控制对审计质量的影响具有双重性:一方面,政府控制增强了会计事务所的"本土知识"优势和抵御公司压力的能力,进而提高了公司报表质量;另一方面,政府控制依据它对审计市场的控制降低了出具非标意见的概率,损害了审计质量。     

Auditor reporting and earnings management: some additional evidence

This paper investigates the reasons that lead to modification of auditors’ opinions. We revisit the conclusions of prior US‐based research on whether a modification highlights likely earnings management activities. Extending this research, we consider an alternate explanation that managers adjust accruals to report earnings that better predict future firm performance, which has the side‐effect of placing them in conflict with their auditors. Our study sample comprises all firms listed on the Australian Stock Exchange over the period 1999–2003. Consistent with prior research, there is no evidence of earnings management leading to an audit opinion modification. However, we do show that firms receiving inherent uncertainty modifications (other than going concern) have greater persistence of earnings (accruals) relative to other firms. This is consistent with the proposition that managers have made policy choices in reporting current earnings, with which their auditors disagree, that will likely result in a greater ability to forecast the firm's future earnings.     

Do Analysts and Auditors Use Information in Accruals?

Existing research indicates that firms with high accruals are more likely to experience future earnings problems, but that investors' expectations, as reflected in stock prices, do not appear to anticipate these problems. In this paper, we directly examine the published opinions of two types of professional investor intermediaries to see if they provide investors with information concerning the future earnings problems experienced by firms with high accruals. First, we examine the earnings forecasts of sell-side analysts. We show that analysts' earnings forecasts do not incorporate the predictable future earnings declines associated with high accruals. Second, we examine the behavior of independent auditors. We find no evidence that auditors signal the future earnings problems associated with high accruals through either their audit opinions or through auditor changes. Overall, our evidence indicates that analysts and auditors do not alert investors to the future earnings problems associated with high accruals, thus corroborating previous findings that investors do not appear to anticipate these problems.