THE VALUE RELEVANCE OF THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS’ BOTTOM LINES IN THE EMERGING EGYPTIAN CAPITAL MARKET

This study aims to examine the value relevance of the bottom lines of the financialstatements in the Egyptian context after the inception of the new version of EgyptianAccounting Standards of 2006. Considering the tradition accounting value ofconservatism and the firm size, the price and return models are operationalized usinga sample of the most actively traded companies on the Egyptian Stock Market inthe period from 2007-2009. Three important conclusions captured from the results;first, the bottom lines of the financial statements are value relevant and the accrualcomponents are upper handed over the cash flow in estimating the market value ofthose firms. Second, conservatism practices is still alive in the Egyptian context;however, it does not prevent the accounting information from being value relevant.Third, the promulgation of the new version of EASs shifts the value relevance towardsbook value over the other accounting information. These results should be interpretedin the light of the rapid shift towards capitalism and the deregulation program followedby the Egyptian government in the recent years. Also, these results might possibly beattributed to a significant improvement in the familiarity of the preparers of accountinginformation with the new accounting practices and the needs of financial reportingusers in Egypt. As such, this study contributes to the existing literature by investigatingand operationalizing the value relevance of accounting information in an emergingmarket such as Egypt after the introduction of the new version of EASs of 2006.