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Does the monitoring role of buyout houses improve discretionary accruals quality?
Author(s) -
Wang Chong
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
accounting and finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.645
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-629X
pISSN - 0810-5391
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-629x.2010.00351.x
Subject(s) - accrual , leveraged buyout , business , discretion , private equity , equity (law) , accounting , quality (philosophy) , sample (material) , shareholder , agency (philosophy) , finance , corporate governance , earnings , philosophy , chemistry , epistemology , chromatography , political science , law
Using a sample of reverse leveraged buyout (‘reverse‐LBO’) firms, I find that discretionary accruals quality (AQ), the quality of accruals that are subject to management discretion, significantly improves from pre‐LBO to post‐reverse LBO. Moreover, buyout houses’ board seats and the length of firms’ stay‐in‐private periods are significant explanatory variables for the cross‐sectional variation in discretionary AQ for post‐reverse‐LBO firms. My findings suggest that the monitoring provided by private equity buyout houses improves discretionary AQ, consistent with the view of Jensen (1989a,b) that LBOs are a solution to inefficiencies that arise from agency problems.