Opaque auditor dismissal disclosures: What does timing reveal that disclosures do not?

Auditor resignations provide a clear signal of accounting problems or heightened audit risk; however, registrants label the vast majority of auditor changes as dismissals, which carry more ambiguity. Motivated by the opacity of current dismissal disclosures, this study explores the usefulness of these disclosures compared to an alternative signal – the timing of the dismissal within the reporting year – for inferring the causes and implications of dismissals. Dividing the reporting year into key periods, we find that the probabilities of future restatements, material weaknesses, and delistings following a dismissal generally increase within the reporting year while negative circumstances disclosed do not. Analyses suggest that the timing patterns are caused by burgeoning, yet undisclosed, conflicts between the client and the outgoing auditor, rather than by transition difficulties involving the new auditor (as prior literature claims). The timing patterns strongly persist after controlling for negative circumstances that registrants disclose in the dismissal filing, suggesting that the disclosures are not fully revealing. In fact, disclosed negative circumstances have no incremental predictive power for future restatements and delistings. Our results suggest a severe lack of informativeness of current disclosures and support previous calls for improvement of dismissal disclosure regulation.     

虚设还是威慑：退市制度市场效应研究

通过建立动态博弈模型分析股市摘牌的作用机理,实证研究\"ST预警—摘牌\"退市体系的市场认可程度。结果发现,虽然退市预警制度在短期内能较好地向市场传达风险信号,但在中长期里给予了投资者投机炒作的空间,这有助于解释为何以往理论研究与市场观察结果相悖;即便我国股市摘牌强度相对较低,但市场能识别摘牌强度的信号并对其做出显著反应,摘牌起到了\"杀鸡儆猴\"的威慑作用。     

债务重组、退市压力与审计意见

本文以新准则实施后2007年和2008年中国A股上市公司为样本,研究发现新准则下进行机会主义债务重组的公司主要是已经连续两年亏损面临停牌风险的公司,而一年亏损的公司则对这一极端盈余管理手段的使用比较谨慎,并不倾向于进行债务重组来避免被特别处理。同时,发挥外部公司治理功能的审计师能够在一定程度察觉这些公司的机会主义行为,但是由于我国退市制度中没有对审计意见的严格规定,使得审计意见对公司进行机会主义债务重组行为的制约作用较弱。     

论我国创业板退市程序的完善:基于投资者权益保护视角

创业板上市公司退市,无疑会对投资者权益产生重大的影响,如何确保投资者在创业板退市过程中合法权益不受侵害,涉及到方方面面的问题。宏观上如法制环境、市场相关制度1、行政监管、行业自律等,微观上如退市标准和退市程序制度等。其中完备和严格的程序既能保障退市及时、有效地进行,防止退市不畅,又能对退市决定的使用和退市过程加以必要的约束和限制,防止其被滥用。本文通过重点论述海外成熟创业板市场退市程序中的重点程序制度及其之于完善我国创业板退市程序和投资者保护的意义,旨在为我国创业板退市程序建设提供政策建议。     

Going-concern initial public offerings

We study the relation between audit reports and the capital-raising activities of small business by studying the role of going-concern (GC) audit opinions in IPOs. After controlling for other effects, we find that the presence of a GC opinion is positively related to whether a stock delists (for deleterious reasons) within two years of IPO. We also find that GC IPOs suffer less first-day underpricing. Based on Rock (1986), this implies that firms with GCs have less ex ante uncertainty in the sense that the information conveyed by a GC helps uninformed investors estimate the dispersion of secondary market values.     

Delisted versus voluntary delisted versus remain listed: financial disclosure timing

We focus in the period of announcement of accounting information for companies listed in an organized market and we re-examine their probability of delisting, voluntarily or not. Adopting the same framework, consideration is given to the assumption that investors utilize market information when accounting data are published. The analysis provided indicates that investors should pay attention to the financial disclosure timing. Our investigation demonstrated that even the short period of three months is quite important to making investment decisions.     

中国境外上市公司的退市分析——基于阿里巴巴退市案例分析

继中出国企业掀起海外上市风潮以来,2011年开始出现了一轮争相退出海外的新浪潮。那么究竟是什么原因使得众多的中国境外上市公司摈弃上市公司这一荣誉头衔呢？本文以阿里巴巴网络有限公司退市为例进行解读,并从中得到启示。     

避免亏损与公开增发盈余管理的识别与估计:来自聚束设计的实证证据

基于2002-2017年中国A股上市公司披露的加权平均净资产收益率(ROE)数据,本文识别出上市公司在0%(避免亏损)和6%(公开增发股票)两个阈值处的盈余管理动机,并对盈余管理频率和幅度进行估计。首先,数据证实A股上市公司ROE分布图在阈值0%和6%处存在明显的左侧样本缺失、右侧样本聚集现象,表明公司确实为满足政策要求在阈值附近进行了盈余管理,将公司ROE从阈值左侧操纵至右侧。其次,本文用聚束设计方法估计出3.18%的上市公司为避免汇报亏损而进行盈余管理,占真实亏损公司的59.25%,进行盈余管理的公司将ROE平均提高了2.115个百分点。为了成功公开增发而进行盈余管理的上市公司比例虽然仅有0.28%,但占到了实际股票公开增发公司的58.13%,平均盈余管理幅度为0.524个百分点。最后,异质性分析表明:2016年以前上市公司为了避免亏损而进行盈余管理的动机一直很稳定,2002-2005年是为了满足公开增发条件而进行盈余管理最严重的年份;动机强烈的ST企业和杠杆率高的企业进行盈余管理的频率更高。