The Disclosure of Non-GAAP Earnings Following Regulation G: An Analysis of Transitory Gains
Michael BaumkerPhilip BiggsSarah E. McVayJeremy Pierce
Michael Baumker is a Senior Audit Associate at KPMG, Philip Biggs is an Accountant at Tetra Capital, Sarah E. McVay is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington, and Jeremy Pierce is an Experienced Associate at PwC.
Corresponding author: Sarah E. McVay. Email: smcvay@uw.edu
We thank two anonymous reviewers, Asher Curtis, Paul Griffin, Terry Shevlin, and Ben Whipple for their helpful comments.
SYNOPSIS
We investigate how managers report one-time gains resulting from legal settlements and insurance recoveries in press releases following Regulation G. Regulation G may have had the unintended consequence of allowing managers to omit mention of these transitory gains, resulting in higher reported performance absent non-GAAP disclosure. We find that while managers generally provide some information about transitory gains in the earnings announcement, there is a large amount of variation in the granularity of the detail. For example, the vast majority of managers (88.5 percent) mention the gain in the earnings announcement, but few (34 percent) report non-GAAP earnings per share summary figures explicitly excluding transitory gains. This percentage is significantly lower than pre-Regulation G, where approximately 62 percent of firms reported non-GAAP earnings per share excluding the transitory gain. Interestingly, we find that gains are less likely to be carved out of earnings when there are no concurrent transitory losses, providing some evidence that there continues to be an opportunistic component of non-GAAP reporting following Regulation G.
Empirical Evidence on Repeat Restatements
Rebecca FilesNathan Y. SharpAnne M. Thompson
Rebecca Files is an Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Dallas, Nathan Y. Sharp is an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University, and Anne M. Thompson is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Corresponding author: Anne M. Thompson. Email: amthomps@illinois.edu
We are thankful for helpful comments and suggestions received from Paul A. Griffin (editor), two anonymous reviewers, Sue Scholz, Nate Stephens, and participants at the 2011 American Accounting Association Auditing Midyear Conference. We thank Brady Twedt for providing data to support this project. We are also grateful to the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, the Naveen Jindal School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas, and the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign for financial support.
SYNOPSIS
This study examines the characteristics and market consequences of repeat restatements. We find that 38 percent of the restating companies in our sample restate at least twice between 2002 and 2008, and 31 percent of repeat restatement firms restate three or more times during the same period. Our tests identify several auditor and restatement characteristics that distinguish single from repeat restatements at the time of the first restatement. Repeat restatements are more likely among clients of non-Big N auditors and those with lower ex ante accounting quality. However, firms that switch auditors between the end of their misstatement period and the restatement announcement are less likely to experience repeat restatements. Although subsequent restatements tend to be less severe than the first in a series of restatements, firms suffer similar declines in stock prices with up to three restatement announcements. In addition, firms often restate the same fiscal periods multiple times, and these “overlapping” restatements are more frequent when managers are distracted by other difficulties, such as discontinued operations or internal control weaknesses. Our findings should be valuable to investors, regulators, and other parties interested in repeat restatements. We provide research design recommendations for researchers to incorporate in future research.