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Consequences of changing the auditor’s report: Evidence from the U.K.
Elizabeth Gutierrez
Universidad de Chile
Miguel Minutti-Meza*
University of Miami
Kay W. Tatum
University of Miami
Maria Vulcheva
Florida International University
May 17, 2016
Abstract: The audit regulator in the United Kingdom made significant changes to the auditor’s report
for large public companies with fiscal years beginning on or after October 1, 2012. The new report has to
describe significant risks of material misstatement, the application of materiality, and the audit’s scope.
We study changes in audit fees, audit quality, and investors’ reaction to the report’s public release in the
two years before and after the new rules. We find mixed evidence of a change in audit fees, ranging from
an increase of nearly four percent to no change, depending on model specification. We do not find
evidence of changes in audit quality or investors’ reaction to the report’s public release. Further
examining the content of the new reports, we document that the total length of the report, the length of the
risks’ discussion, and the number of risks are positively associated with audit fees. Moreover, materiality
is inversely related to audit quality. Thus, although the new report format had a small impact on audit fees
and did not significantly change audit quality or investors’ reaction to the report, the mandated risk and
materiality disclosures are associated with cross-sectional variation in audit fees and quality.
The authors thank Keith Czerney, Pietro Bianchi, Like Jiang (discussant), Jake Krupa, Stephania Mason (discussant), Robert Pawlewicz, Matthew Phillips, Grace Pownall, Sundaresh Ramnath, Joe Schroeder, Michael Willenborg, and seminar participants at AAA Auditing Section Midyear Meeting 2016, AAA International Accounting Section Midyear Meeting 2016, Florida International University, the International Symposium on Audit Research (ISAR) 2015, Ohio State University, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), and Singapore Management University for helpful comments and suggestions. All errors are our own. *Corresponding author: [email protected].
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Consequences of changing the auditor’s report: Evidence from the U.K.
1. INTRODUCTION
Audit regulators worldwide are taking steps to enhance the content of the auditor’s report,
including the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and Ireland, the
International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) across countries, and the Public
Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) in the U.S. In most countries, including the
United States (U.S.), the auditor’s report uses standardized language for the vast majority of
companies. Most importantly, the auditor’s opinion has a “pass or fail” nature regarding
compliance with accounting principles. Arguably, the auditor’s report provides financial
statement users with little company-specific information about the auditor’s work.
The FRC has promulgated changes issuing International Standard on Auditing (ISA) 700
(U.K. and Ireland, revised June 2013), “The Independent Auditor’s Report on Financial
Statements” (FRC 2013). This standard mandates significant modifications to the auditor’s
report for companies with a premium listing of equity shares on the London Stock Exchange
(LSE) Main Market with fiscal years beginning on or after October 1, 2012 (i.e., fiscal year-end
on or after September 2013).1 The new report is significantly longer than the previous
standardized report. The auditor must describe the most significant risks of material
misstatement, the application of materiality, and the audit’s scope.2 These disclosures were not
required by prior auditor’s report standards.
Concurrently with the FRC’s new standard, the IAASB and PCAOB issued proposals for 1 The Main Market is the LSE’s principal market for listed companies from the U.K. and overseas. There are three listing categories in the Main Market: premium, standard, and high growth. Premium listing is only open to equity shares issued by trading companies and closed- and open-end investment entities. Premium listed companies must comply with the U.K.’s highest standards of regulation and corporate governance. http://www.londonstockexchange.com/companies-and-advisors/main-market/main/market.htm. In our analyses we focus on premium listed non-financial companies incorporated in Great Britain. 2 In Appendix A we provide an example of a U.K. auditor’s report prepared in 2013 in accordance with the new rules.
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revised auditor reporting standards (IAASB 2013; PCAOB 2013). An important new
requirement in both the IAASB and PCAOB standards is to communicate information specific to
key audit matters (KAMs – the IAASB proposal) or critical audit matters (CAMs – the PCAOB
proposal). Similar to the U.K. requirements regarding the assessment and disclosure of
significant risks of material misstatement, both KAMs and CAMs aim to provide additional
context about the auditor’s work.3 The IAASB issued revised auditor reporting standards in
January 2015, including ISA 701 “Communicating Key Audit Matters in the Independent
Auditor’s Report” (IAASB 2015c). The PCAOB continues to work on a revised standard and
intends to issue a reproposal in the second or third quarter of 2016.4
In this study we examine the consequences of the new auditor’s report in the U.K., in
terms of audit costs, audit quality, and investors’ reaction to the report’s filing. We take
advantage of the cut-off date for the adoption of the new report’s requirements, applicable to
companies with fiscal years starting on or after October 1, 2012. In our first set of analyses, we
examine data from two years before and after the cut-off date, and test for changes in audit fees,
as a proxy for audit costs; in absolute discretionary accruals, as a proxy for audit quality; and, in
three-day cumulative absolute abnormal returns and trading volume around the public
dissemination of the annual report, which includes the auditor’s report, as proxies for investors’
reaction to the report’s content.5
The regulatory cut-off date effectively results in having a treatment group of new report
adopters and a control group of non-adopters immediately before and after the September 2013
3 The PCAOB proposal also contains other changes, including enhancing the report’s writing and adding statements about auditor independence, auditor tenure, and the auditor’s responsibility for, and evaluation of, other information. 4 http://pcaobus.org/Standards/Documents/2016Q1-standard-setting-agenda.pdf 5 In additional analyses we examine the incidence of small earnings and total accruals as alternative proxies for audit quality; and, three-day abnormal signed returns and three-day trading spread around the report’s filing date as alternative proxies for investors’ reaction. We do not find evidence that the new report resulted in changes in the incidence of small earnings, total accruals, abnormal signed returns, or trading spread.
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implementation date. In our second set of analyses, we examine the one-year pre-post adoption
changes for companies with fiscal year-end between September 2013 and February 2014 (i.e.,
adopters of the new report format starting in 2013), using as a benchmark the group of
companies with fiscal year-end between March and August 2013 (i.e., non-adopters of the new
report format in 2013). The control group, consisting of companies subject to the same listing
requirements, but fiscal year-end immediately before the September 2013 cut-off date, helps to
isolate the effects of the new report from time trends and other potential confounding factors
(i.e., short-term difference-in-differences analysis).6
We document mixed evidence regarding a change in audit fees. Examining two years
before and after the new rules, the new report is associated with an increment in audit fees of
approximately four percent. This estimate is reduced to approximately three percent after
including company fixed effects in our pre-post audit fee model. However, comparing
companies reporting six months before and after the regulatory cut-off, to the same companies a
year prior, we do not find evidence of a difference-in-differences effect of the new report on
audit fees. Furthermore, we do not find evidence that the new report had an overall impact on
audit quality or investors’ reaction. This lack of findings is consistent with several FRC’s
statements, including ISA 700 (U.K. and Ireland, revised June 2013), which explicitly mention
that the intent of the new requirements is to make public information previously discussed with
the audit committee and that meeting these requirements is not likely to be very costly (FRC
2013a, 2013b, 2013c).
6In our analyses we use all non-financial companies in the LSE Main Market Premium that meet the cut-off criteria, with available financial statement data in Thomson Reuters Worldscope and hand-collected data from annual reports. Our sample selection criteria are discussed in more detail in Section 4. We acknowledge that the industry composition of companies with fiscal year-ends before and after October is not identical. However, we only use the control group to isolate the one-year time difference between the year of adoption and the year prior (i.e., meet the parallel trends assumption of difference-in-differences). As additional analyses we also include firm fixed effects, aiming to isolate industry and any other time-invariant firm-specific characteristics.
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We also conduct cross-sectional analyses pertaining to the two-year period following the
adoption of the new rules. We examine the association between audit fees, audit quality, and
investors’ reaction and several quantifiable elements of the new reports, including the total
length of the report, the length of the risks’ discussion, the number of risks, and the materiality
threshold.7 Under the new rules, the length of the report has tripled, increasing from one to
approximately three pages. The section on risks of material misstatement discloses on average
four risks. The average (median) materiality is 0.6 (0.5) percent of total assets.8 We document
that the length of the report, the length of the risks’ discussion, and the number of risks are all
positively related to audit fees, suggesting an association between auditor effort or risk premium
and the auditor’s assessment and disclosure of important audit issues. We also find that
materiality is positively related to absolute discretionary accruals, suggesting that materiality is
inversely related to audit quality. Moreover, we find some evidence that the length of the report
and the length of the risks’ discussion are negatively associated with three-day absolute
abnormal returns, indicating larger price reaction to more concise audit reports. However, we do
not find consistent evidence using abnormal trading volume.9
Our combined findings suggest that the risk and materiality disclosures in the report are
predictably related to cross-sectional variation in audit fees and quality. Arguably, if the risks
and materiality disclosures were strictly boilerplate, they would not be associated with these
outcomes. Nevertheless, comparing the two years before and after the adoption of the new rules,
7 We do not explicitly assess the effect of scope disclosures, beyond examining the effects of the total length of the auditor’s report, because the scope disclosures are difficult to quantify. In many cases the scope disclosures discuss the group structure of the audit without providing additional details. See for example, the scope section of the report included in Appendix A. 8 We scale the materiality amount in British Pounds by total assets in order to use the same denominator for all companies. However, our results do not depend on scaling by total assets. We also use the natural logarithm of the materiality amount in our main analyses. 9 In additional analyses we also report the results using signed three-day abnormal returns. We do not find an association between the report’s characteristics and signed three-day abnormal returns.
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the new report had a relatively small impact on audit fees and did not significantly change audit
quality or investors’ reaction around the filing date.
Our study adds to the mixed evidence provided by other contemporaneous papers
examining the effect of the new U.K. audit regulation (Lennox et al. 2015; Reid et al. 2015a,
2015b). While closely related to these studies, our study differs in three aspects. First, we
examine a longer sample period that spans four years around the adoption of the new rules. Our
sample allows us to investigate changes beyond the first year after the adoption of the new rules.
Second, we use the September 2013 regulatory cut-off date to implement difference-in-
differences analyses, where the control group is comprised of companies listed in the same
market, with annual reports in the months just preceding the regulatory cut-off.10 Third, we
perform a series of cross-sectional tests examining the association between the report’s content
and audit fees, audit quality, and investor’s reaction. Lennox et al. (2015) document that the risk
disclosures are not incrementally informative to investors, focusing on changes in firm value and
the incremental impact of the risk disclosures on firm value.11 Furthermore, they do not find
evidence of either a change in market reaction in the short window surrounding the report’s
filing, or a significant change in audit fees after the adoption of the new rules. On the other hand,
Reid et al. (2015, 2015b) find a marginal increase in audit fees, a decrease of 0.019 in absolute
abnormal accruals, a decrease of 24 percent in the odds of meeting or beating analysts’ forecasts,
and an increase of approximately 12.7 percent in abnormal trading volume around the filing of
annual reports after the adoption of the new rules. 10 Both Lennox et al. (2015) and Reid et al. (2015a; 2015b) use companies listed in the LSE’s AIM market as a control group. AIM is an alternative international market for comparatively smaller growing companies. There are major differences between premium and AIM listed companies. A premium listing entails comparatively more rigorous standards and compliance with the U.K. Corporate Governance Code. Reid et al. (2015a; 2015b) also use companies listed in the U.S. New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as an alternative control group. There are considerable differences between the NYSE and LSE premium listing requirements, as well as different litigation environments in the U.S. and U.K. 11 Lennox et al. (2015) examine the effect of risk disclosures as input of long-window equity valuation models.
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Our findings can be of interest to regulators and other parties considering changes to the
auditor’s report. The U.K. is a large and developed market and our findings may be useful in
assessing similar changes to the auditor’s report in other similar jurisdictions. With regard to the
U.K., the findings of our study may help regulators and other interested parties, aiming to
enhance the usefulness of the currently mandated new report’s disclosure in the U.K. (FRC
2015).12 This study contributes to the literature on auditor’s reports and their association with the
cost of audits, audit quality, and investors’ reaction (Bedard et al. 2015; Butler et al. 2004;
Carcello and Li 2013; Czerney et al. 2014a, 2014b; Hay et al. 2006; Menon and Williams 2010).
We also contribute to the literature on risk disclosures in financial reports (Campbell et al. 2014;
Kravet and Muslu 2013). Finally, this study extends the descriptive evidence provided by
financial analysts and auditors on the consequences of the auditor’s report change in the U.K.
(Citi 2014, 2015; KPMG 2014; PwC 2015).
2. BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
Effective changes to the auditor’s report in the U.K. in 2013
Currently, in most countries, including the U.S., the auditor’s report uses standardized
language for a vast majority of companies. However, investors and regulators have expressed
growing concern about the usefulness of the auditors’ reports. Arguably, the standardized
wording of the auditor’s report and the pass-fail nature of the auditor’s opinion may not give
financial statement users enough relevant information. For example, “until now, auditors’ letters
have been among the least interesting part of annual reports. If the opinions said the accounting
was proper – and virtually all did – and did not voice concern whether the company could stay in
business, the letters were basically the same. There was no reason for an investor to read them” 12 Reviews of the first two years of reports conducted by the FRC and involving discussions with investors and auditors suggest that there is room for improvement, for example by increasing the granularity of risk reporting and providing more explanations about the materiality, scope, and risk disclosures (FRC 2015, 2016).
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(Norris 2014).
Audit regulators have taken steps to change the auditor’s report. The U.K. FRC has
moved forward by issuing ISA 700 (U.K. and Ireland, revised June 2013), “The Independent
Auditor’s Report on Financial Statements” (FRC 2013a). This new auditing standard mandates
significant changes to the auditor’s report for most large companies listed on the LSE with fiscal
years beginning on or after October 1, 2012.13 The new standard (paragraph 19A of ISA 700)
requires auditors to: (1) describe the most significant risks of material misstatement; (2) disclose
how the auditor applies the concept of materiality, including a materiality threshold for the
statements as a whole and performance materiality; and, (3) explain the scope of the audit.
The new FRC standard complements changes made to the U.K. Corporate Governance
Code in October 2012 (FRC 2012a, 2012b). The Code requires additional specific disclosures for
audit committees, including (1) a description of the significant issues that the audit committee
considered in relation to the financial statements, and how these issues were addressed; (2) an
explanation of how the audit committee has assessed the effectiveness of the external audit
process and the approach taken to the appointment or reappointment of the external auditor; (3)
information about the length of tenure of the current audit firm and when a tender was last
conducted; and, (4) if the external auditor provides non-audit services, an explanation of how the
audit committee ensures that auditor objectivity and independence are safeguarded (paragraph
C.3.8 of the U.K. Corporate Governance Code FRC 2014).
IAASB and PCAOB initiatives to enhance the auditor’s report
An important new requirement in both the IAASB and PCAOB standards is to
communicate information specific to key audit matters (KAMs – the IAASB proposal) or critical 13 In the U.K., the new rules apply to companies with a Premium listing of equity shares regardless of whether they are incorporated in the U.K. or elsewhere. In Ireland, these include Irish incorporated companies with a primary or secondary listing of equity shares on the Irish Stock Exchange.
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audit matters (CAMs – the PCAOB proposal). Similar to the U.K. requirements regarding the
assessment and disclosure of significant risks of material misstatement, both KAMs and CAMs
aim to provide additional context about the auditor’s work.14 The IAASB issued revised auditor
reporting standards in January 2015, including ISA 700 “Forming an Opinion on Financial
Statements” and ISA 701 “Communicating Key Audit Matters in the Independent Auditor’s
Report” (IAASB 2015c).15
The PCAOB issued an initial proposed auditing standard on the auditor’s report in
August 2013 (PCAOB 2013). The proposed standard retains the basic elements from the existing
standard, including the requirement to express an opinion about whether or not the financial
statements are fairly presented in accordance with GAAP (i.e., “pass or fail” opinion). However,
the proposed standard makes significant changes to the existing report. It requires the auditor to
communicate CAMs, enhances certain language in the current report, and adds new elements.
The new elements are a statement about auditor independence, a statement about the auditor’s
responsibility for other information, and a disclosure on auditor tenure. The proposal to revise
the auditor report model is on the PCAOB’s standard-setting agenda for the second and third
quarter of 2016.
We note that the FRC, IAASB, and PCAOB requirements regarding significant risks of
material misstatement, KAMs, and CAMS do not have identical definitions (EY 2014). The
significant risks of material misstatement are risks that had the greatest effect on audit strategy,
14 The PCAOB proposal also contains other changes, including enhancing the report’s writing and adding statements about auditor independence, auditor tenure, and the auditor’s responsibility for, and evaluation of, other information. 15 The standards will be effective for audits of financial statements for periods ending on or after December 15, 2016. Early adoption is permitted. The key changes are: (1) inclusion and discussion of KAMs; (2) declaration of auditor independence and compliance with ethical standards; (3) signature of the engagement partner with a “harm’s way exemption”; (4) prescribed order of the presentation of the auditor’s report; (5) emphasis on the audit opinion and other firm-specific information; (6) auditor assessment of the appropriateness of the management’s going concern assumption and review of circumstances that might endanger this assumption; and (7) improved disclosure of auditor responsibilities.
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allocation of resources, and directing of the efforts of the audit team (FRC 2013). KAMs are
areas of most significance in the audit, determined from matters discussed with those charged
with governance, that required auditor attention (IAASB 2015b). CAMs are areas of most
significant audit difficulty, including those that require significant auditor judgment (PCAOB
2013).
Effect of changes to the auditor’s report on audit fees, audit quality, and investors’ reaction
First, we are interested in determining whether the regulatory changes had an overall
impact on the cost of audits. Prior research has found positive association between audit fees and
client size, risk, complexity, and auditor litigation risk (Carcello and Li 2013; Hay et al. 2006;
Seetharaman et al. 2002). Therefore, a potential change in auditor effort and risk premium,
resulting from increased disclosures in the auditor’s report under the new regime, can impact the
cost of audits. Thus, we formulate the following alternative hypothesis:
H1: All else equal, the adoption of the new auditor’s report is associated with an
increase in audit fees.
We are also interested in determining whether the regulatory changes had an overall
impact on audit quality. The literature on audit quality has generally demonstrated that
reputation, litigation, and regulatory concerns shape the incentives that drive auditors to supply
audit quality (DeFond and Zhang 2014). Additional disclosures in the auditor’s report might put
companies and their auditors under more careful scrutiny by users, especially when it comes to
risk disclosures, and thus increase audit quality. Therefore, to test the effect of the new regulation
on audit quality, we formulate the following alternative hypothesis:
H2: All else equal, the adoption of the new auditor’s report is associated with an
increase in audit quality.
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Finally, we examine whether the regulatory changes are associated with investors’
reaction to the filing of the auditor’s report. The new auditor’s report disclosures on the
significant risks of material misstatement, the application of materiality, and the scope of the
audit were not available to investors before the regulatory changes. These disclosures might
provide new information to the market and motivate a revision in the aggregate investors’ beliefs
about the value of the firm (i.e., price reaction), and a revision of differential pre-announcement
beliefs and announcement interpretations for individual investors (i.e., trading volume reaction)
(Bamber et al. 2011).
Previous studies of the auditor’s report in the U.S. demonstrate that non-standard
modifications, such as going concern opinions, have information content when they are not
expected (Menon and Williams 2010). More generally, Czerney et al. (2014a) document
investors’ reaction to various forms of explanatory language in the auditor’s report (e.g.,
adoption of new accounting standards, division of auditor responsibility, previous restatements,
and emphasis of matter paragraphs) and suggest that the report’s language may have an attention
directing effect. To investigate whether the new format of the auditor’s report has incremental
information content, we propose the following alternative hypothesis:
H3: All else equal, the adoption of the new auditor’s report is associated with investors’
reaction to the filing of annual reports.
However, there are three broad reasons why the changes to the report may not have an
observable effect on audit fees, audit quality, and investors’ reaction in the years immediately
following the adoption of the new rules.
First, regulators did not expect a large revision to the auditors’ methodologies, but instead
aimed to make public several matters already discussed privately between auditors and audit
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committees. Several FRC statements explicitly mention that the new report’s requirements intend
to make public information previously discussed with the audit committee and that meeting these
requirements is not likely to be very costly. The report’s standard ISA (U.K. and Ireland) 700
(FRC 2013) mentions in paragraph A13A “assessed risks of material misstatement are likely to
have been identified by the auditor in meeting the requirements of ISA (U.K. and Ireland) 315.”
A Consultation Paper (FRC 2013c, paragraph 23) highlights that “investors did not think that
cost would be a significant issue as the costs would largely be related to the additional
consideration of public reporting of matters likely to have been already fully addressed in the
audit and reported to the audit committee.” A Feedback Statement (FRC 2013b, paragraph 6.1),
dealing with implementation issues, notes that “as the auditor is already required to disclose the
information to be included in the audit report to the audit committee the work effort in preparing
it and familiarizing the audit committee with it should be minimal.” Thus, increased disclosures
on auditors’ judgments not change auditors’ litigation risk or enable auditors to increase fees
significantly (i.e., increase number of billable hours or rate per hour). Furthermore, audit quality
may already have accounted for significant risks, even if the auditor or the client did not publicly
disclose such risks (i.e., on average, risks were adequately addressed and mitigated before the
new rules).
Second, the additional information may not be strictly new to investors or significant enough
to change the average perceptions about a company’s financial reporting quality. Disclosing
uncertainty regarding revenue recognition, tax accounting, valuation, etc. may already be
expected by investors given other information sources (e.g., management discussions, financial
analyst reports, audit committee reports) and investors may already infer the risk profile of a
company from other observable characteristics (size, presence of intangible assets including
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goodwill, etc.).16
Third, the new rules could have a long-term impact not captured by our sample and proxies
for the cost of audits, audit quality, and investors’ reaction. According to FRC (2016, p. 4),
although investors have welcomed extended auditor reporting, and greatly value the enhanced
information it provides, they feel that more could still be done to enhance the reports. Investors
noted that they want more granular descriptions of risks, more transparency about assumptions
made by management and benchmarks used by auditors, and greater precision. For example,
“words like ‘significant’ are not necessarily sufficiently informative” (FRC 2016, p.21).
3. RESEARCH DESIGN AND MODEL SPECIFICATION
Pre-post adoption and difference-in-differences research design
We take advantage of the cut-off date for the adoption of the new auditor’s report
requirements, applicable to LSE Main Market premium listed companies with fiscal years
starting on or after October 1, 2012 (i.e., year-ends on or after September 2013). In our first set
of analyses, using data from two years before and two years after the cut-off date (see Figure 1-
A), we examine pre-post adoption changes in audit fees as a proxy for the cost of audits; in
absolute discretionary accruals as a proxy for audit quality; and, in three-day cumulative
abnormal trading volume and absolute abnormal returns around the public dissemination of the
annual report, which includes the auditor’s report, as proxies for investors’ reaction to the
auditor’s report.
The regulatory cut-off date effectively results in having a treatment group of new report
adopters and a control group of non-adopters immediately before and after the September 2013
implementation date. In a second set of analyses, we examine the one-year pre-post adoption 16 In private discussions with personnel from a Big-4 firm with experience with the report changes we confirmed that in the short term there were no fundamental changes to their methodology and that the ability to increase fees as a result of the new changes was limited.
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changes for companies with fiscal year-end between September 2013 and February 2014 (i.e.,
adopters of the new report format), including as a benchmark the one-year pre-post changes for
companies with fiscal year-end between March and August 2013 (i.e., non-adopters of the new
report format, see Figure 1-B). Although the sample in the difference-in-difference analysis is
relatively small, we aim to capture short-term changes in outcomes around the adoption of the
new rules, while controlling for other confounding factors.
Next, we conduct additional cross-sectional analyses in the two years following the new
report rules (see Figure 1-C). We examine the association between the auditor’s report content
and audit fees, audit quality, and investors’ reaction. We start by examining the extent of the new
disclosures by focusing on the total length of the auditor’s report. Later on, we focus on
quantifiable elements of the new report, the risks’ discussion and the materiality threshold.
Audit fee analyses
Our measure of audit fees is the logarithm of total fees paid to the auditor for audit
services in each year. We manually obtain audit fees from the notes to the financial statements in
the annual report. To examine the effect of the new report on audit fees, we estimate the
following pre-post model, using all firm-year observations with available data two years before
and after the regulatory cut-off date in September 2013:
AFEESi,t = β0 + β1POSTi,t + β2SIZEi,t + β3ROAi,t + β4LEVi,t + β5CURRi,t
+ β6NSEGi,t + β7FORSALESi,t + β8BIG4i,t + β9CHAUDi,t + β10GCi,t
+ β11DECYEi,t + β12USLISTi,t + IndustryFE + εi,t (1a)
where for company i in year t, POSTi,t is a time indicator variable, equal to one for the two years
following the new report requirements (starting in September 2013), and zero otherwise,
capturing the overall pre-post adoption effect of the new report; SIZEi,t is the natural logarithm of
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total assets; ROAi,t is net income before extraordinary items (NIBE) divided by total assets;
LEVi,t is long-term debt divided by total assets; FORSALESi,t is non-U.K. sales divided by total
sales; CURRi,t is current assets divided by total assets; NSEGi,t is the natural logarithm of the
number of business segments; USLISTi,t is equal to one if the company is cross-listed on the
NYSE, AMEX, or NASDAQ stock exchanges, and zero otherwise;17 CHAUDi,t is equal to one if
the company has an audit firm change in the current fiscal year, and zero otherwise; GCi,t is
equal to one if the auditor’s report includes a going concern qualification, and zero otherwise;
BIG4i,t is equal to one if the company is audited by a Big-4 auditor, and zero otherwise; and,
IndustryFE are 1-digit SIC Codes industry fixed effects.18 The control variables aim to isolate
the effects of client risk, size, and complexity, and have been commonly used in previous audit
fee research (Hay et al. 2006).
For our difference-in-differences analyses we estimate the following model, using firm-
year observations with fiscal year-end six months before (March to August 2013) and after
(September 2013 to February 2014) the regulatory cut-off date in September 2013, as well as the
same companies in the prior year:
AFEESi,t = β0 + β1ADOPTERi,t + β2YR2013i,t + β3ADOPTER*YR2013i,t
+ β4SIZEi,t + β5ROAi,t + β6LEVi,t + β7CURRi,t + β8NSEGi,t
+ β9FORSALESi,t + β10BIG4i,t + β11CHAUDi,t + β12GCi,t
+ β13DECYEi,t + β14USLISTi,t + IndustryFE + εi,t (1b)
where for company i in year t, ADOPTERi,t is an indicator variable for the September cut-off date
of the new report requirements, equal to one for companies with fiscal year-ends in the six
17 Including over-the-counter (OTC) listings in the USLISTi,t definition does not change our results. 18 All continuous variables in the regression models, except for the investors’ reaction dependent variables (absolute abnormal return and abnormal volume), are winsorized at the one and 99 percent levels to mitigate the presence of outliers. Our results are similar if we winsorize or truncate the investors’ reaction dependent variables (absolute abnormal return and abnormal volume) at the one and 99 percent levels. Standard errors are clustered by company.
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months from September to February, and zero in the six months from March to August;
YR2013i,t is a time indicator variable, equal to one for companies with fiscal year-ends in the six
months around the adoption date in September 2013 (March 2013 to February 2014), and zero
for the same companies in the year before (March 2012 to February 2013); ADOPTER*YR2013i,t
is the interaction between ADOPTERi,t and YR2013i,t capturing the incremental one-year
difference for adopters of the new report format, compared to the one-year difference for non-
adopters of the new report format (i.e., short-term difference-in-differences estimator); and, all
other variables are as described above. We also include company fixed effects in models 1a and
1b and report the results in Section 6.
Finally, for our cross-sectional analyses of the association between audit fees and report
characteristics we estimate the following model, using firm-year observations for the two years
after the regulatory cut-off date in September 2013:
AFEESi,t = β0 + β1REPORT_DISCLi,t + β2SIZEi,t + β3ROAi,t + β4LEVi,t
+ β5CURRi,t + β6NSEGi,t + β7FORSALESi,t + β8BIG4i,t + β9CHAUDi,t
+ β10GCi,t + β11DECYEi,t + β12USLISTi,t + IndustryFE + εi,t
(1c)
where for company i in year t, REPORT_DISCLi,t is one of the following independent variables:
TOTAL_NWRDSi,t, the natural logarithm of the total number of words in the auditor’s report;
RISK_NWRDSi,t, the natural logarithm of the total number of words in the risks section of the
auditor’s report; NRISKSi,t, the number of risks disclosed in the auditor’s report; PERCMATi,t, the
materiality amount in British Pounds divided by total assets; or, LOGMATi,t, the natural
logarithm of the materiality amount.19 All other variables are as defined above.
19 For example, in the report in Appendix A there are two risks disclosed by the auditor (1) Fraud in revenue recognition, and (2) Risk of management override of internal controls. The number of words in the risks section is
17
Audit quality analyses
Our proxy for audit quality in our main analyses is the absolute value of discretionary
accruals. This measure arguably captures audit quality with respect to financial reporting quality,
where higher audit quality is defined as greater assurance that the financial statements faithfully
reflect the firm’s underlying economics conditioned on the financial reporting system and its
innate characteristics (DeFond and Zhang 2014). Moreover, this measure has been extensively
used in prior research on audit quality (e.g., Carcello and Li 2013; Lawrence et al. 2011; Reichelt
and Wang 2010). To examine the effect of the new report on audit quality, we estimate the
following pre-post model:
DACCRi,t = β0 + β1POSTi,t + β2SIZEi,t + β3ROAi,t + β4LEVi,t + β5BIG4i,t
+ β6USLISTi,t + IndustryFE + εi,t (2a)
where for company i in year t, DACCRi,t is absolute discretionary accruals, estimated using the
Jones model including ROA, scaling all variables by average assets.20 The control variables aim
to isolate the effects of client characteristics and have been used in previous research on audit
quality (e.g., Lawrence et al. 2011). All other variables are as defined above.
For our difference-in-differences analyses, using a similar research design as in our audit
fee analyses, we estimate the following model:
the word count of the paragraphs under each risk heading, 92 for the first risk and 90 for the second risk, total 182. The disclosed total materiality is £1.3 million. 20 Discretionary accruals are estimated using an annual cross-sectional model for each SIC-2 digit industry (Kothari et al. 2005) for all the companies on the London Stock Exchange. In order to obtain these companies, we use the WSCOPEUK list from Worldscope for securities on LSE, that are major and primary (EXDSCD = ‘LN’ MAJOR = ‘Y’ and ISINID = ‘P’) and that are not Investment Trusts or Closed-End Funds (TYPE = ‘EQ’). Discretionary accruals are the residual of the following model:
!"##$!,! = ! + !!!"#!,! + !!∆!"#$%!,! + !!!!"!,! + !!,! where for firm ! and year !, !"##$!,! is (income before extraordinary items - cash flow from operations)/average total assets; !"#!,! is (net income before extraordinary items)/average total assets; ∆!"#$%!,! is (!"#$%! −!"#$%!!!)/average total assets; and !!"!,! is gross property, plant, and equipment/average total assets.
18
DACCRi,t = β0 + β1ADOPTERi,t + β2YR2013i,t + β3ADOPTER*YR2013i,t
+ β4SIZEi,t + β5ROAi,t + β6LEVi,t + β7BIG4i,t +β8USLISTi,t
+ IndustryFE + εi,t (2b)
where all variables are as defined above. We also include company fixed effects in models 2a
and 2b and report the results in Section 6. Next, for our cross-sectional analyses we estimate the
following model, using firm-year observations for the two years after the regulatory cut-off:
DACCRi,t = β0 + β1REPORT_DISCLi,t + β2SIZEi,t + β3ROAi,t + β4LEVi,t
+ β5BIG4i,t + β6USLISTi,t + IndustryFE + εi,t
(2c)
where all variables are as defined above.
Analyses of investors’ reaction
Our two proxies for investors’ reaction are (1) the cumulative absolute abnormal returns
surrounding the date of the public distribution of the annual report, which includes the auditor’s
report (i.e., report filing date), and (2) the sum of three-day abnormal trading volume around the
report filing date. Absolute abnormal returns reflect the average change in investors’ belief due
to an announcement event. Abnormal trading volume, in turn, reflects the change in individual
investors’ beliefs (Garfinkel and Sokobin 2006). The later proxy arguably captures not only
information content, but also information asymmetry and investor disagreement regarding new
information. Prior literature suggests that while somewhat positively correlated, the two
measures can be considered largely independent of each other (Bamber and Cheon 1995). Any
given information event can result in high abnormal volume and almost no change in returns and
vice versa (Kandel and Pearson 1995). Thus, using the two measures together increases our
chances of finding an investor reaction to the new auditor’s report. Furthermore, utilizing both
measures is important given the comparatively small size of our sample (Cready and Hurtt
19
2002).
The auditor’s report is included in the release of each company’s full annual report. The
U.K. Companies Act mandates that annual reports must be publicly available. Specifically, DTR
6.3 requires a public announcement when the report is submitted to the National Storage
Mechanism and available for viewing on each company’s website. We search the company
announcements of annual filings using the Regulatory News Service (RNS) of the LSE, as well
as the National Storage Mechanism (NSM).21 The release of the full annual report follows an
earlier earnings announcement disclosure. For the companies in our sample the earnings
announcement is a very complete form of disclosure, containing full financial statements and
mentioning whether the auditor’s opinion was unqualified. Moreover, the current listing rules
require preliminary announcements to be agreed with the auditor prior to publication (FRC
2015). See Appendix C for an illustration about how we identify and calculate daily returns
around the annual report’s public release dates. To examine the effect of the new report on
investors’ reaction, we estimate the following pre-post model:
REACTIONi,t = β0 + β1POSTi,t + β2SIZEi,t + β3ROAi,t + β4LEVi,t + β5USLISTi,t
+ β6IOWNi,t + β7CHNIi,t + β8STDRETi,t + β9MTBi,t + β10BETAi,t
+ IndustryFE + εi,t (3a)
21 For example, see the announcement by ITE Group plc on December 24, 2013 in RNS that the annual report is available at: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/11816292. html. The FRC requirements are described in detail at: http://fshandbook.info/FS/html/handbook/DTR/6/3. We could not identify reliable report filing dates in Worldscope, Bloomberg, or other online open sources. We find that the annual report filing dates in Worldscope and Bloomberg often correspond to the earnings release date as per the RNS announcements. The LSE RNS website can be accessed searching each company at: http:// www.londonstockexchange.com/prices-and-markets/markets/prices.htm. The NSM can be accessed searching each company at: http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/NSM. An alternative source is the website http://www.investegate.co.uk. For a small number of observations we cannot identify the specific announcement of the release of the annual report. In these cases we use the date of the announcement of the Annual General Meeting (if available), or the date of the Annual General Meeting, as release dates.
20
where for company i in year t, REACTIONi,t is one of two proxies for investors’ reaction,
ABS_ABRETi,t, the value of the sum of the three-day absolute abnormal returns by company,
calculated each day as the company returns = (Price Closet – Price Closet-1)/Price Closet-1 minus
same-day returns for the LSE value-weighted portfolio;22 or, ABVOLi,t, the natural logarithm of
the ratio of the company’s mean event-period volume divided by the company’s mean
estimation-period volume. Event-period volume is daily volume over the two-day event window
beginning on the report filing date, scaled by shares outstanding. Estimation-period volume is
measured over the trading period beginning 61 days before the earnings announcement date and
ending 40 days later (i.e., 21 days before the earnings announcement date);23 IOWNi,t is the
natural logarithm of the number of the company's shares held by institutional investors/total
number of shares outstanding as of the current fiscal year end;24 CHNIi,t is NIBE in year t minus
NIBE in year t-1 scaled by total assets in year t-1; STDRETi,t is the standard deviation of daily
stock returns in year t; MTBi,t is equity market value divided by book value; and, all other
variables are as defined above; and, BETAi,t is the slope coefficient from regressing the daily
return on the company's stock on daily returns of the value-weighed portfolio, over 220 day
period (-250, -21) relative to the filing date of the current year financial statements.
For our difference-in-differences analyses, using a similar research design as in our audit
fee and audit quality analyses, we estimate the following model:
REACTIONi,t = β0 + β1ADOPTERi,t + β2YR2013i,t + β3ADOPTER*YR2013i,t
+ β4SIZEi,t + β5ROAi,t + β6LEVi,t + β7USLISTi,t + β8IOWNi,t
+ β9CHNIi,t + β10STDRETi,t + β11BETAi,t + β12MTBi,t (3b)
22 We calculate market variables by aggregating companies’ individual data. We obtain the constituents of the LSE from WSCOPEUK list from Worldscope for securities on LSE, that are major and primary (EXDSCD = ‘LN’ MAJOR = ‘Y’ and ISINID = ‘P’) and that are not Investment Trusts or Closed-End Funds (TYPE = ‘EQ’). 23 Our measure of abnormal volume is consistent with DeFond et al. (2007) and Miller (2010) 24 We aggregate the percentage as reported by Thomson Reuters where we only exclude ‘Individuals’ from the ownership reported.
21
+ IndustryFE + εi,t
where all variables are as defined above. We also include company fixed effects in models 3a
and 3b and report the results in Section 6. For our cross-sectional analyses we estimate the
following model, using firm-year observations for the two years after the regulatory cut-off:
REACTIONi,t = β0 + β1REPORT_DISCLi,t + β2SIZEi,t + β3ROAi,t + β4LEVi,t
+ β5USLISTi,t + β6IOWNi,t + β7CHNIi,t + β8STDRETi,t + β9BETAi,t
+ β10MTBi,t + IndustryFE + εi,t
(3c)
where all variables are as defined above.
4. SAMPLE SELECTION AND DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
Sample selection
Table 1 shows the samples used in our analyses. We start our sample with all 691
companies incorporated in Great Britain, with ordinary stocks listed in the LSE Premium as of
December 31, 2013 and traded in the LSE Main Market.25 We merge this list of companies with
the Thomson Reuters Worldscope database and find 340 non-financial companies with SEDOL
identifiers (i.e., eliminate SIC codes 6000 to 6999). There is a large number of banking,
insurance, trust, and investment companies traded in the LSE Main Market (KPMG 2014). Our
study focuses on non-financial companies similar to prior literature (e.g., Carcello and Li 2013;
Czerney et al. 2014a, 2014b; Seetharaman et al. 2002).26
We read and manually code information from annual reports (e.g., auditor’s report 25 The companies listed in the LSE are available at: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/statistics/companies-and-issuers/companies-and-issuers.htm. We used the list available on April 30, 2015. 26 We identified only three “early” adopters in our sample. Vodaphone Group included an auditor’s report based on the FRC’s exposure draft for fiscal year-end March 31, 2013. Sky plc included an auditor’s report based on the revised FRC standard issued in June 2013 for fiscal year-end June 30, 2013. Ashmore Group included an auditor’s report based on the revised FRC standard issued in June 2013 for fiscal year-end June 30, 2013. Vodaphone Group and Sky plc are included in our sample. For these companies and consistent with the September 2013 cut-off, we considered March 31, 2014 and June 30, 2014 the first regular year of adoption.
22
length; name of audit firm and audit partner; number and description of significant risks of
material misstatement in the auditor’s report; materiality amount; audit fees; and, number and
description of significant accounting issues in the audit committee report). Finally, we
complement our data with financial and returns variables from the Thomson Reuters databases
(Worldscope, Fundamentals and Datastream).
Our main pre-post analyses of audit fees use 1,320 firm-year observations with available
data from two years before (660 observations) and two years after (660 observations) the
regulatory cut-off. In sensitivity analyses we use 1,248 firm-year observations from companies
with data for the full four-year panel. Our differences-in-differences analyses use 664 firm-year
observations that meet the criteria of our research design. There are 126 and 206 companies
reporting six months before and after the regulatory cut-off, also with data in the year prior. Our
cross-sectional analyses of the report length and risk disclosures use 651 firm-year observations
where we could extract the auditor report’s text and count the number of words. Our cross-
sectional analyses of materiality disclosures use 657 firm-year observations.27
Our main pre-post analyses of audit quality use 1,108 firm-year observations with
available data from two years before (568 observations) and two years after (540 observations)
the regulatory cut-off. In sensitivity analyses we use 912 firm-year observations from companies
with data for the full four-year panel. Our differences-in-differences analyses use 572 firm-year
observations that meet the criteria of our research design. There are 110 and 176 companies
reporting six months before and after the regulatory cut-off, also with data in the year prior. Our
cross-sectional analyses of the report length and risk disclosures use 533 firm-year observations
where we could extract the auditor report’s text and count the number of words. Our cross-
27 There are a few cases when the companies do not disclose a specific materiality amount. We code these cases as missing.
23
sectional analyses of materiality disclosures use 537 firm-year observations.
Our main pre-post analyses of investors’ reaction use 1,236 firm-year observations with
available data from two years before (615 observations) and two years after (621 observations)
the regulatory cut-off. In sensitivity analyses we use 1,112 firm-year observations from
companies with data for the full four-year panel. Our differences-in-differences analyses use 610
firm-year observations that meet the criteria of our research design. There are 111 and 194
companies reporting six months before and after the regulatory cut-off, also with data in the year
prior. Our cross-sectional analyses of the report length and risk disclosures use 605 firm-year
observations where we could extract the auditor report’s text and count the number of words.
Our cross-sectional analyses of materiality disclosures use 611 firm-year observations. The main
additional data restrictions compared to our fee analyses are the availability of market data and
identifying the date on which each company’s annual report is available to investors (i.e., filing
date) in the LSE RNS and NSM databases.
5. RESULTS
Audit fee analyses
Table 2, Panel A, reports the descriptive statistics for the variables used in our audit fee
analyses. The mean of AFEESi,t is 13.095 when POSTi,t =1 (untabulated, approximately 486,500
British Pounds in the post adoption period), compared to a mean of 13.014 when POSTi,t =0
(untabulated, approximately 448,600 British Pounds in the pre adoption period). However, the
difference in means between the pre and post adoption periods is not statistically significant (at
the ten-percent level).
The companies in our sample are relatively large, the mean SIZEi,t is 13.554 when POSTi,t
=1 (untabulated, approximately 767 million pounds in assets in the post adoption period). Most
24
of the companies have a Big 4 auditor (mean BIG4i,t = 0.936 when POSTi,t =1). The only
statistically significant differences in means between the pre and post adoption periods are a one-
percent decrease in ROAi,t (significant at the five-percent level), a three-percent increase in
auditor rotation CHAUDi,t (significant at the one-percent level), and a two-percent increase in the
incidence of going concern opinions GCi,t (significant at the five-percent level).
The length of the auditor’s report has increased by approximately two pages under the
new rules (untabulated, approximately 2,400 words in the new reports, compared to 757 words in
the old reports). The new section on risks of material misstatement has on average four risks
(untabulated, approximately 660 words, about 30 percent of the words in the new report). The
average materiality PERCMATi,t is 0.65 percent of total assets (the median is 0.5 percent, or half
of one percent).
Table 2, Panel B, Columns 1 shows coefficients and t-statistics for our pre-post adoption
analyses of audit fees, using data from two years before and two years after the regulatory cut-off
(Model 1a). The coefficient on POSTi,t = 0.038 in Column 1 (statistically significant at the one-
percent level) indicates that fees increased by approximately four percent after the adoption of
the new rules. However, the pre-post analysis doesn’t allow us to rule out a generalized increase
in fees due to other time-varying economic factors besides the adoption of the new report. As
documented in prior studies (Hay et al. 2006), we find that audit fees are positively associated
with client size (SIZEi,t), leverage (LEVi,t), current assets (CURRi,t), number of segments
(NSEGi,t), foreign sales (FORSALESi,t), receiving a going concern opinion (GCi,t), December
fiscal year-ends (DECYEi,t), and U.S. cross-listing status (USLISTi,t).
Table 2, Panel B, Column 2 shows coefficients and t-statistics for our differences-in-
differences analyses, using firm-year observations with fiscal year-end six months before (March
25
to August 2013) and after (September 2013 to February 2014) the regulatory cut-off in
September 2013, as well as the same companies in the prior year (Model 1b, see Section 3 for
additional details). The coefficient on ADOPTER*YR2013i,t = 0.021 in Column 2 (statistically
insignificant at the ten-percent level) does not show a short-term difference-in-differences effect
on audit fees. Hence, the 4 percent increase in the pre-post analysis cannot be entirely attributed
to the change in regulation. Also, one could argue that the “true” cost of complying with the new
audit report model is beyond audit fees. For example, if auditors and clients negotiate and split
compliance work to be done as well as audit fees, the “true” costs of the new rules may not be
directly reflected in audit fees.
Table 2, Panel C documents that audit fees are positively associated with the total length
of the report (Column 1, the coefficient on TOTAL_NWRDSit = 0.420 is statistically significant at
the one-percent level); the length of the risks’ discussion (Column 2, the coefficient on
RISK_NWRDSit = 0.082 is statistically significant at the one-percent level); and, the number of
risks (Column 3, the coefficient on NRISKSit = 0.074 is statistically significant at the one-percent
level). These findings suggest an association between auditor’s effort, or auditor’s risk premium,
and the auditor’s assessment and disclosure of difficult audit issues. In other words, the number
and length of the auditor’s risk disclosures are reflected in audit fees. Although unlikely, the
significantly positive relationship between audit fees and risk disclosure could also be
attributable to the risk premium paid by riskier clients. In contrast, in Table 2, Panel D we do not
find evidence of an association between audit fees and materiality. In Column 1, the coefficient
on PERCMATit = 0.128 and in Column 2 the coefficient on LOGMATit = 0.117 are not
statistically significant at the ten-percent level.28
28 Prior research has documented that client’s risks and materiality are associated with audit fees (Bell et al. 2000; Houston et al. 1999; Pratt and Stice 1994). A comparatively lower level of materiality and greater risk of
26
Audit quality analyses
Table 3, Panel A, reports the descriptive statistics of the data used in our audit quality
analyses. The absolute discretionary accruals for the companies in our sample have a mean of
0.048 in the pre and post adoption period (mean DACCRi,t = 0.048 when POSTi,t =0 and POSTi,t
=1). The only statistically significant difference in means between the pre and post adoption
periods in is a one-percent decrease in ROAi,t (significant at the ten-percent level).
Table 3, Panel B, Column 1 shows coefficients and t-statistics for our pre-post adoption
analyses of audit quality, using data from two years before and two years after the regulatory cut-
off date (Model 2a). The coefficient on POSTi,t = -0.001 in Column 1 (statistically insignificant
at the ten-percent level) indicates that audit quality did not change after the new rules were
adopted. As documented in prior studies (e.g., Kothari et al. 2005), we find that absolute
discretionary accruals are negatively associated with client size (SIZEi,t) and profitability
(ROAi,t). We document similar results for our differences-in-differences analyses (Model 2b) in
Table 3, Panel B, Column 2. The coefficient on ADOPTER*YR2013i,t = -0.007 in Column 2
(statistically insignificant at the ten-percent level) does not show a short-term difference-in-
differences effect on audit quality.
In Table 3, Panel C we do not find evidence of an association between audit quality and
the total length of the report (Column 1, the coefficient on TOTAL_NWRDSit = -0.008 is
statistically insignificant at the ten-percent level); the length of the risks’ discussion (Column 2,
the coefficient on RISK_NWRDSit = -0.003 is statistically insignificant at the ten-percent level);
and, the number of risks (Column 3, the coefficient on NRISKSit = -0.001 is statistically
misstatement can lead to an increase in the resources required to obtain audit evidence, and therefore to an increase in audit fees. Bell et al. (2000) find that the increase in the perceived business risk of the audit engagement results in higher audit fees, through the increase in the billable hours reported by the auditor. Nevertheless, as pointed out by Bell et al. (2000), specific risks cannot be incorporated in the audit fee determination if they cannot be quantified, if they are quantifiable only at the industry level, or if market conditions do not allow for the fees to reflect audit risk.
27
insignificant at the ten-percent level). In Column 1, the coefficient on PERCMATit = 0.034 and in
Column 2 the coefficient on LOGMATit = 0.021 are statistically significant at the one-percent
level. These findings suggest that audit quality decreases (i.e., absolute accruals increase) as
materiality increases.
Investors that are supportive of the new auditor’s report argue that audit judgment (e.g.,
the auditor’s assessment of risks and materiality) can increase the understanding of how audit
firms apply auditing standards and also enable investors to better evaluate the quality of the audit
(FRC 2013). As investors and regulators gain more insight into the audit process, auditors’
incentives to supply audit quality may increase due to a change in their litigation and regulatory
risk. Over time, the disclosures on materiality and risks may change the auditor’s judgments
regarding the amount and type of audit evidence, and therefore, lead to an increase in audit
quality. Contrary to this view, opponents to the new auditor’s report indicate that the new
disclosures may not enhance the understanding of investors because these issues are too complex
to be summarized in the auditor’s report (FRC 2013).
Analyses of investors’ reaction
Table 4, Panel A, reports the descriptive statistics of the data used in our investors’
reaction analyses. The means of ABS_ABRETi,t and ABVOLi,t on the report filing dates are 0.020
and -0.029 when POSTi,t =1, repsectively. The difference in means for the two variables from
the pre to the post period, insignificant at the ten-percent level, suggests that the auditor report is
not more informative to investors following the regulatory changes. The only statistically
significant difference in means between the pre and post adoption periods is a small decrease in
the standard deviation of stock returns (STDRETi,t) and an increase in market-to-book (MTBi,t),
both significant at the one-percent level. Appendix C provides an illustration of daily returns on
28
the dates of the earnings release versus the subsequent public release of the annual report.
Table 4, Panel B, Columns 1 and 3 show coefficients and t-statistics for our pre-post
adoption analyses of investors’ reaction, using absolute abnormal returns and abnormal volume
respectively (Model 3a). The coefficients on POSTi,t = 0.002 in Column 1, and POSTi,t = -0.022
in Column 3, are statistically insignificant at the ten-percent level. Table 4, Panel B, Columns 2
and 4 show coefficients and t-statistics for our differences-in-differences analyses. We do not
find a difference-in-difference effect on investors’ reaction. These combined findings indicate
that investors’ reaction to the auditor’s report content did not change, on average, after the new
rules were adopted.
In Table 4, Panel C we find a weak, negative association between absolute abnormal
returns and the total length of the report and the length of the risk discussion. In Column 1, the
coefficient on TOTAL_NWRDSi,t is -0.007, statistically significant at the ten-percent level; in
Column 2, the coefficient on RISK_NWRDSi,t is -0.003, statistically significant at the five-
percent level. This suggest that abnormal returns around report dissemination are lager for firms
with more concise audit reports. Nevertheless, we do not find evidence of an association between
abnormal volume and the total length of the report, the length of the risks’ discussion, or the
number of risks. Finally, in Table 4, Panel D we do not find an association between investors’
reaction and materiality.29
6. ADDITIONAL AND SENSITIVITY ANALYSES
29 Some research suggests that the disclosure of materiality in the auditor’s report might help reduce the audit expectation gap (De Martinis and Burrowes 1996). However, Houghton et al. (2011) also show in a series of interviews and focus groups that the concept of materiality is not easy to grasp for financial statement users. Users frequently associate materiality with the size of the items being audited instead of the conservatism and costs of the audit. Users also seem to focus more on the quantitative rather than the qualitative aspects of materiality. If investors have trouble in understanding materiality or the materiality threshold is relatively standardized, its disclosure might not produce a market reaction. Finally, materiality should be the maximum level of misstatement that will not affect a reasonable financial statement user. The market may not react to disclosed materiality levels if auditors are setting materiality to an acceptable level (i.e., the market agrees with the auditor’s determination of materiality).
29
Fixed effects, companies with data for the full panel, and bootstrapped standard errors
In order to mitigate the effect of time-invariant client characteristics, we also include
company fixed effects in our pre-post and difference-in-differences models. In our audit fee pre-
post model (1a) we find that the coefficient on POSTi,t is 0.027 (untabulated, statistically
significant at the five-percent level), indicating that audit fees increased by approximately three
percent in the two years after the adoption of the new rules. After including company fixed
effects in our pre-post and difference-in-differences models, we do not find evidence that the
new report had an overall impact on audit quality or investors’ reaction, confirming our main
analyses. Furthermore, in order to isolate auditor “style” and idiosyncratic differences among
audit firms in their reports, we also estimate our pre-post models including auditor fixed effects,
instead of a Big-4 indicator variable, and find similar inferences to those documented in the main
analyses.
We also estimate our pre-post models including only those companies that have data for
the full four-year pre-post period. These analyses are comparatively stricter about using each
company in the pre period as its own control for the post period. In our fee model (1a) we find
that the coefficient on POSTi,t is 0.026 (untabulated, statistically significant at the ten-percent
level), indicating that fees increased by approximately three percent in the two years after the
adoption of the new rules. Also, using observations with four years of data in model (2a), we do
not find evidence that the new report had an overall impact on audit quality. In our investors’
reaction pre-post model (3a), we find that the coefficient on POSTi,t is 0.002 (untabulated,
statistically significant at the ten-percent level) when the dependent variable is absolute abnormal
return, but we find no significant association between POSTi,t and abnormal trading volume.
Thus, our findings on investors’ reaction are in general consistent with our main analyses.
30
Finally, in order to mitigate concerns that our findings are the result of low power, we compute
standard errors for our pre-post and difference-in-differences models using bootstrap with 2,000
replications. We find similar inferences to those documented in the main analyses.
One-year differences pre-post adoption and between the first two years of adoption
In order to isolate one-year changes in the pre-post adoption years, we limit our samples
to the two years around the adoption of the new rules (t and t-1). In our fee model (1a) we find
that the coefficient on POSTi,t is 0.028 (untabulated, statistically significant at the one-percent
level), indicating that fees increased by approximately three percent in the first year after the
adoption of the new rules. We do not find evidence that the new report had an overall one-year
impact on audit quality or investors’ reaction, confirming our main analyses.
In order to compare the two years post adoption (t and t+1), we also estimate a modified
version of our pre-post models. We limit our samples to the post adoption years and include an
indicator variable for the second year of adoption (t+1). We do not find evidence of differences
between the two years post adoption in audit fees, audit quality, or abnormal trading volume, but
we find a significant coefficient for the indicator variable equals to -0.003 (untabulated,
statistically significant at ten-percent level). Finally, we examine the composition and number of
risks in the two years post adoption. We classify individual risks in 16 categories, based on our
interpretation of the main issue by reading the risk headings and disclosures. Table 5 shows the
percentage of companies reporting each risk type in years t and t+1. Revenue recognition is the
predominant risk type, disclosed in 71 and 61 percent of the reports in year t and t+1,
respectively. Risks associated with impairment of goodwill and long-term assets, tax accounting,
and business combinations are also commonly disclosed in the reports. Examining the pair-wise
correlation between risks, we find that some associations are positive and some negative.
31
However, we do not find a clear pattern. The only two risk types that appear often together are
revenue recognition and internal control issues (untabulated, pair-wise correlation is 0.30,
statistically significant at the five-percent level). However, among other risks, correlation
patterns are unclear. The most important change between year t and t+1 is a decrease in the
incidence of including internal control issues. This shift seems to follow concerns about the
boilerplate nature of some risk disclosures (Citi 2014).
The mean number of risks in year t and t+1 is 3.97 and 3.88, respectively (untabulated,
the median is 4 in both years). In order to compare the effect of changes in the number of risks in
the two years post adoption t and t+1, we also estimate a modified version of our cross-sectional
models of the association between NRISKSi,t and audit fees, audit quality, and investors’ reaction
(Models 1c, 2c, and 3c). We limit our samples to the post adoption years and include an indicator
variable for the second year of adoption (t+1), as well as an interaction between the second year
indicator and NRISKSi,t. The interaction coefficient between the second year indicator and
NRISKSi,t in the fee model is 0.049 (untabulated, statistically significant at the one-percent level),
in the audit quality model is 0.004 (untabulated, statistically significant at the ten-percent level),
and in the absolute abnormal returns and abnormal volume models is not statistically significant
(at the ten-percent level). These results indicate that changes in the number of risks year-over-
year can be meaningful in terms of audit fees and audit quality.
Accounting issues disclosed by the audit committee
There were other changes to corporate reporting in the U.K. around the same time, in
particular the changes to the U.K. Corporate Governance Code in October 2012 (FRC 2012b).
These changes require additional disclosures by the audit committee of the board of directors in
the corporate governance section of the annual report. To assess the potential importance of the
32
accounting risks in the audit committee report versus the risks in the auditor’s report, we include
NRISKSi,t the number of risks of material misstatement disclosed in the auditor’s report and also
ACNRISKSi,t the number of risks of material misstatement disclosed in the audit committee’s
report in Models (1c), (2c), and (3c). There is a large degree of overlap between these two
sources of significant risks. In untabulated analyses, the pairwise correlation between NRISKSi,t
and ACNRISKSi,t is 0.54 (statistically significant at the one-percent level). The FRC report
examining the first two years of auditor’s reports (FRC 2016, Table 13) documents that there is
74 and 85 percent overlap in the first and second year of adoption, respectively, on the types of
risk reported by auditors and audit committees. Including both NRISKSi,t and ACNRISKSi,t in our
cross-sectional fee analyses (Model 1c) we find that ACNRISKSi,t is positively associated with
fees (untabulated coefficient 0.036, statistically significant at the five-percent level) and
NRISKSi,t is not associated with audit fees. In our cross-sectional analyses of audit quality and
investor’s reaction (Models 2c and 3c) we do not find statistically significant coefficients (at the
ten-percent level) for NRISKSi,t and ACNRISKSi,t. Overall, it is difficult to conclude whether the
risks in the auditor’s report are more informative than the risks in the report of the Audit
Committee.
Reportable differences to the audit committee in the materiality section
In addition to reporting a materiality amount, companies also disclose a smaller threshold
for reportable issues to the audit committee. For example, in the report in Appendix A
materiality is 1.3 million pounds, but the auditor discloses that any differences over 62,000
pounds will be discussed with the audit committee, as well as misstatements below that amount
that, in the auditor’s view, warrant reporting for qualitative reasons. The correlation between
materiality and reportable differences scaled by total assets is 0.66 (both statistically significant
33
at the one-percent level). In Models (1c), (2c), and (3c), we included both PERCMATi,t the
materiality amount divided by total assets, and PERCREPDIFFi,t the reportable differences
amount divided by total assets. In untabulated analyses, we find a positive association between
PERCMATi,t and discretionary accruals (statistically significant at the five-percent level), but no
association between PERCREPDIFFi,t and audit fees, discretionary accruals, or investors’
reaction.
Additional proxies for audit quality
As an alternative proxy for audit quality, we use the incidence of small earnings as an
inverse proxy for audit quality (Carcello and Li 2013), defined as an indicator variable equal to
one if the change in net income before extraordinary items from year t-1 to year t, scaled by
market value of equity at year t-1, is in the interval [0,0.02], and zero otherwise. We estimate
logistic regression models using the incidence of small earnings as a dependent variable and the
same independent variables as in models (2a), (2b), and (2c), excluding industry fixed effects,
given the low incidence of the small earnings variable (the untabulated mean of this variable in
our pre-post sample is 0.014). In untabulated analyses, using this proxy we do not find evidence
that the new report resulted in changes in audit quality (i.e., pre-post or difference-in-differences
analyses). We do not find an association between this proxy and the length of the report or risk
section. We find a negative association between this proxy and the number of risks and the
length of the risk section (at the five-percent level). We find a positive association between this
proxy and LOGMATi,t, the natural logarithm of the materiality amount (statistically significant at
the ten-percent level).
We also use performance-adjusted (i.e., ROA-matched) discretionary accruals, following
Kothari et al. (2005). In untabulated analyses, using this proxy we do not find evidence that the
34
new report resulted in changes in audit quality (i.e., pre-post or difference-in-differences
analyses). We do not find an association between this proxy and the length of the report or risk
section. However, we find a positive association between this proxy and both our materiality
variables (statistically significant at the five-percent level). The association between materiality
and these two alternative proxies (i.e., small earnings and performance-adjusted discretionary
accruals) confirm our findings that materiality is inversely related to audit quality.
Finally, in order to investigate whether there was a change in total accruals after the
adoption of the new rules, we estimate our pre-post and difference-in-differences models using
absolute total accruals as the dependent variable. The correlation between absolute total accruals
and discretionary accruals is 0.6 (untabulated, statistically significant at the one-percent level). In
untabulated analyses, we also do not find evidence that the new report resulted in changes in
total accruals. The combined findings of these alternative analyses demonstrate that our
inferences are not driven by our estimation of discretionary accruals.
Additional proxies for investors’ reaction and information asymmetry
We used the average spread on the dissemination date of the annual report, including the
auditor’s report, as a proxy for investors’ reaction and changes in information asymmetry.
Average bid-ask spread is widely used as a proxy of information asymmetry (Lee et al. 1993;
Leuz and Verrecchia 2000). According to theoretical models, market specialists widen the bid-
ask spread when there is greater information asymmetry between informed and liquidity traders
(Glosten and Milgrom 1985). In untabulated analyses we do not find evidence that the new
auditor’s report had an effect on information asymmetry. We compute the average effective bid-
ask spread during the filing date scaled by trade price (spread = (ask - bid)/m, where m=(ask +
bid)/2).
35
We also compute abnormal volume using the market’s volume as a benchmark, as the
sum of the three-day trading volume scaled by common shares outstanding among all UK listed
companies for the period (-1,1) surrounding the filing date of the annual financial statements.
Using this alternative abnormal volume calculation, in untabulated analyses we find inconsistent
results, indicating a decrease in abnormal volume after the implementation of the new
requirements (both in the pre-post and difference-in-differences analyses). We also find a
positive association between this alternative proxy and materiality (LOGMATi,t). However,
considering the evidence from all our analyses together, it is difficult to conclude that the new
report had an effect on investors’ reaction.
Finally, we compute signed three-day cumulative abnormal returns, as well as cumulative
absolute and signed abnormal returns over the period (-5,5) surrounding the filing date of the
annual financial statements. We find similar results (untabulated) to those documented in the
Table 4 Panel B and Panel D. However, we do not find that signed abnormal returns or the
returns over the window (-5,5) are associated with the report characteristics as reported in Table
4 Panel C.
7. CONCLUSION
The auditor’s report is currently the auditor’s only direct communication with
shareholders about the audit process and its outcome. Investors and regulators have expressed
growing concerns about the format of the auditor’s report. In most countries, including the U.S.,
the auditor’s report uses standardized language for the vast majority of companies. The FRC has
moved forward by issuing a new standard that mandates significant changes to the auditor’s
report for most large companies listed on the LSE with fiscal years beginning on or after October
1, 2012.
36
In this study we examine two years pre and two years post the new report requirements in
the U.K. and provide evidence on the consequences of changing the report’s content in terms of
the cost of audits, audit quality, and investors’ reactions to the information in the report.
Examining the pre-post change for the group of adopter companies alone, we find that audit fees
increased by approximately four percent. However, using an alternative research design
examining a treatment group of new report adopters and a control group of non-adopters
reporting immediately before and after the regulatory cut-off in September 2013, we do not find
evidence of short-term consequences to the new report requirements. Moreover, we do not find
evidence that the new report changes audit quality or investors’ reaction. These findings are
consistent with the FRC’s statements, including the new report’s standard ISA 700, explicitly
mentioning that the new requirements intend to make public information previously discussed
with the audit committee and that meeting these requirements is not likely to be very costly (FRC
2013, 2013b, 2013c).
We also conduct cross-sectional analyses examining the association between the new
auditor’s report content and audit fees, audit quality, and investors’ reaction using the sample of
adopter companies in the two years after the cut-off date. We find that the length of the auditor’s
report, the length of the risks’ section, and the number of risks are positively associated with
audit fees, suggesting an association between auditor’s risk and effort and the report’s content.
We also find that the materiality amount is positively associated with absolute discretionary
accruals, suggesting that comparatively smaller materiality is associated with higher audit
quality. Moreover, we find that the total length of the report and the length of the risks’
discussion are negatively associated with the magnitude of price reaction (absolute abnormal
return). Arguably, if the risk and materiality disclosures were strictly boilerplate, they would not
37
be associated with audit fees, quality and magnitude of price reaction.
Our study can be of interest to regulators aiming to change the auditor’s report.
Furthermore, this study contributes to the literature examining the consequences of the auditor’s
report content. We also contribute to the literature on risk disclosures in financial reports.
Finally, this study extends the descriptive evidence provided by practitioners on the
consequences of the auditor’s report change in the U.K. However, we note four broad caveats to
our findings. First, there could be other compliance costs, absorbed by clients or auditors and not
reflected in audit fees. Second, the companies in our study are relatively large, are at the “high-
end” of reporting quality, and have a rich information environment, factors which may decrease
the usefulness of the new auditor’s report. For these companies, the public release of the annual
report is generally not a significant source of news for investors. For smaller companies, with
comparatively poorer information environment and fewer information sources, the auditor’s
disclosures may be incrementally informative. Third, it is difficult to fully disentangle the market
reaction to the auditor’s report from other disclosures in the annual report, including the
disclosures by the audit and other board committees (risk, compensation, etc.). Fourth, the new
rules could have a long-term impact not captured by our sample and proxies for the cost of
audits, audit quality, and investors’ reaction.
38
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Appendix A Example of 2013 new auditor’s report Hilton Food Group plc (SEDOL B1V9NW5)
Independent auditors’ report to the members of Hilton Food Group plc Report on the financial statements The financial statements, defined below, give a true and fair view of the state of the Group’ and of the Company’ affairs as at 29 December 2013 and of the Group’ profit and of the Group’ and Company’ cash flows for the year then ended; Our opinion The Group financial statements have been properly prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) as adopted by the European Union; The Parent Company financial statements have been properly prepared in accordance with IFRSs as adopted by the European Union and as applied in accordance with the provisions of the Companies Act 2006; and, The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 and, as regards the Group financial statements, Article 4 of the IAS Regulation. This opinion is to be read in the context of what we say below. What we have audited The Group financial statements and Parent Company financial statements (the financial statements), which are prepared by Hilton Food Group plc, comprise: • the Group and Company balance sheets as at 29 December 2013; • the Group income statement and statement of comprehensive income for the year then ended; • the Group and Company statements of changes in equity and statements of cash flows for the year
then ended; and, • the notes to the financial statements, which include a summary of significant accounting policies and
other explanatory information. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation comprises applicable law and IFRSs as adopted by the European Union and, as regards the Parent Company, as applied in accordance with the provisions of the Companies Act 2006. What an audit of financial statements involves We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (U.K. and Ireland) (ISAs (U.K. & Ireland)). An audit involves obtaining evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements sufficient to give reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement, whether caused by fraud or error. This includes an assessment of: • whether the accounting policies are appropriate to the Group’ and Company’ circumstances and have
been consistently applied and adequately disclosed; • the reasonableness of significant accounting estimates made by the Directors; and • the overall presentation of the financial statements. In addition, we read all the financial and non-financial information in the Annual Report and financial statements (the Annual Report) to identify material inconsistencies with the audited financial statements and to identify any information that is apparently materially incorrect based on, or materially inconsistent with, the knowledge acquired by us in the course of performing the audit. If we become aware of any apparent material misstatements or inconsistencies we consider the implications for our report. Overview of our audit approach Materiality
43
We set certain thresholds for materiality. These helped us to determine the nature, timing and extent of our audit procedures and to evaluate the effect of misstatements, both individually and on the financial statements as a whole. Based on our professional judgement, we determined materiality for the Group financial statements as a whole to be £1.3 million which is approximately 5% of pre-tax profits. Although our audit was designed to identify material misstatements, we agreed with the Audit Committee that we would report to them misstatements identified during our audit above £62,000 as well as misstatements below that amount that, in our view, warranted reporting for qualitative reasons. Overview of the scope of our audit The Group is structured as a parent company with 11 subsidiary undertakings, of which six are trading subsidiaries, and a joint venture company. The Group financial statements are a consolidation of these entities, which, together, comprise the Group’ operating businesses, centralised functions and intermediary holding companies. In establishing the overall approach to the Group audit, we determined the type of work that needed to be performed at these entities by us, as the Group engagement team, or component auditors within other PwC network firms and other firms operating under our instruction. Where the work was performed by component auditors, we determined the level of involvement we needed to have in the audit work at those entities to be able to conclude whether sufficient appropriate audit evidence had been obtained as a basis for our opinion on the Group financial statements as a whole. We determined that all 11 companies within the Group required an audit of their complete financial information. Areas of particular audit focus In preparing the financial statements, the Directors made a number of subjective judgements, for example in respect of significant accounting estimates that involved making assumptions and considering future events that are inherently uncertain. We primarily focused our work in these areas by assessing the Directors’ judgements against available evidence, forming our own judgements, and evaluating the disclosures in the financial statements. In our audit, we tested and examined information, using sampling and other auditing techniques, to the extent we considered necessary to provide a reasonable basis for us to draw conclusions. We obtained audit evidence through testing the effectiveness of controls, substantive procedures or a combination of both. We considered the following areas to be those that required particular focus in the current year. This is not a complete list of all risks or areas of audit focus identified by our audit. We discussed these areas of focus with the Audit Committee. Their report on those matters that they considered to be significant issues in relation to the financial statements is included within the risk management and internal controls section of the Report of the Audit Committee on page 39. 1) Fraud in revenue recognition. ISAs (U.K. & Ireland) presume there is a risk of fraud in revenue
recognition because of the pressure management may feel to achieve the planned results. We focused on the amount and timing of the recognition of revenue, particularly where the contractual customer terms provide for cost plus pricing or discounts, which are calculated by management. We tested revenue by agreeing it to supporting documentation, including customer contracts, discounts and incentives, and to cash receipts. We also tested journal entries posted to revenue accounts by identifying and challenging unusual or irregular items.
2) Risk of management override of internal controls. ISAs (U.K. & Ireland) require that we consider this. We assessed the overall control environment of the Group, including the arrangements for staff to whistle-blow inappropriate actions, and interviewed senior management and the Group’ internal audit function. We examined the significant accounting estimates and judgements relevant to the financial statements for evidence of bias by the Directors that may represent a risk of material misstatement due to fraud. In particular, we challenged the estimates in respect of the cost plus revenue adjustments and customer rebates. We also tested journal entries.
44
Going Concern Under the Listing Rules we are required to review the Directors’ statement, set out on page 21, in relation to going concern. We have nothing to report having performed our review. As noted in the Directors’ statement, the Directors have concluded that it is appropriate to prepare the Group’ and Company’ financial statements using the going concern basis of accounting. The going concern basis presumes that the Group and Company have adequate resources to remain in operation, and that the Directors intend them to do so, for at least one year from the date the financial statements were signed. As part of our audit we have concluded that the Directors’ use of the going concern basis is appropriate. However, because not all future events or conditions can be predicted, these statements are not a guarantee as to the Group’ and the Company’ ability to continue as a going concern. Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006 In our opinion: • the information given in the Strategic report and the Directors’ report for the financial year for which
the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; • the part of the Directors’ remuneration report to be audited has been properly prepared in accordance
with the Companies Act 2006; and • the information given in the Corporate governance statement set out on pages 36 to 38 in the Annual
Report with respect to internal control and risk management systems and about share capital structures is consistent with the financial statements.
Other matters on which we are required to report by exception Adequacy of accounting records and information and explanations received Under the Companies Act 2006 we are required to report to you if, in our opinion: • we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit; or • adequate accounting records have not been kept by the Company, or returns adequate for our audit
have not been received from branches not visited by us; or • the Company financial statements and the part of the Directors’ remuneration report to be audited are
not in agreement with the accounting records and returns. We have no exceptions to report arising from this responsibility. Directors’ remuneration Under the Companies Act 2006, we are required to report to you if, in our opinion, certain disclosures of Directors’ remuneration specified by law have not been made. We have no exceptions to report arising from this responsibility. Corporate Governance Statement Under the Companies Act 2006, we are required to report to you if, in our opinion a corporate governance statement has not been prepared by the Company. We have no exceptions to report arising from this responsibility. Under the Listing Rules we are required to review the part of the Corporate Governance Statement relating to the Company’ compliance with nine provisions of the U.K. Corporate Governance Code (the Code). We have nothing to report having performed our review. On page 53 of the Annual Report, as required by the Code Provision C.1.1, the directors state that they consider the Annual Report taken as a whole to be fair, balanced and understandable and provides the information necessary for members to assess the Group’ performance, business model and strategy. On page 39, as required by C.3.8 of the Code, the Audit Committee has set out the significant issues that it considered in relation to the financial statements, and how they were addressed. Under ISAs (U.K. & Ireland) we are required to report to you if, in our opinion: • the statement given by the Directors is materially inconsistent with our knowledge of the Group
acquired in the course of performing our audit; or
45
• the section of the Annual Report describing the work of the Audit Committee does not appropriately address matters communicated by us to the Audit Committee.
We have no exceptions to report arising from this responsibility. Other information in the Annual Report Under ISAs (U.K. & Ireland), we are required to report to you if, in our opinion, information in the Annual Report is: • materially inconsistent with the information in the audited financial statements; or • apparently materially incorrect based on, or materially inconsistent with, our knowledge of the Group
and Parent Company acquired in the course of performing our audit; or • is otherwise misleading. We have no exceptions to report arising from this responsibility. Responsibilities for the financial statements and the audit Our responsibilities and those of the Directors As explained more fully in the Directors’ responsibilities statement on page 53, the Directors are responsible for the preparation of the Group and Company financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view. Our responsibility is to audit and express an opinion on the Group and Parent Company financial statements in accordance with applicable law and ISAs (U.K. & Ireland). Those standards require us to comply with the Auditing Practices Board’ Ethical Standards for Auditors. This report, including the opinions, has been prepared for and only for the Company’ members as a body in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006 and for no other purpose. We do not, in giving these opinions, accept or assume responsibility for any other purpose or to any other person to whom this report is shown or into whose hands it may come save where expressly agreed by our prior consent in writing. Martin Pitt (Senior Statutory Auditor) for and on behalf of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Chartered Accountants and Statutory Auditors Belfast 26 March 2014
46
Appendix B Variable definitions
Variable Definition Source
AFEES natural logarithm of audit fees; Annual financial reports POST time indicator variable, equal to one for the two years
following the new report requirements (starting on September 2013), and zero otherwise;
Annual financial reports
YR2013 time indicator variable, equal to one for companies with fiscal year-ends in the six months around the adoption date in September 2013 (March 2013 to February 2014), and zero for the same companies in the year before (March 2012 to February 2013);
Annual financial reports
ADOPTER indicator variable for the September cut-off of the new report requirements, equal to one for companies with fiscal year-ends in the six months September to February, and zero in the six months from March to August;
Annual financial reports
SIZE natural logarithm of total assets; Worldscope ROA net income before extraordinary items/total assets; Worldscope LEV long-term debt/total assets; Worldscope CURR current assets/total assets; Worldscope NSEG natural logarithm of the number of business segments; Worldscope FORSALES sales outside the U.K./total sales; Worldscope BIG4 one if the company is audited by a Big-4 auditor (Deloitte,
EY, KPMG, and PwC), and zero otherwise; Annual financial reports
CHAUD one if the company had an auditor change in the current fiscal year, and zero otherwise;
Annual financial reports
GC one if the audit report includes a going concern qualification, and zero otherwise;
Annual financial reports
DECYE one if the company has a fiscal year-end in December, and zero otherwise;
Worldscope and annual financial reports
USLIST one if the company is cross-listed on the NYSE, AMEX, or NASDAQ stock exchanges, and zero otherwise;
ADR database of Bank of NY Mellon
IndustryFE 1-digit SIC Codes industry fixed effects; Worldscope TOTAL_NWRDS
natural logarithm of the total number of words in the auditor’s report;
Annual financial reports
RISK_WRDS natural logarithm of the number of words in the risks section of the auditor’s report;
Annual financial reports
NRISKS number of risks disclosed in the auditor’s report; Annual financial reports
47
Variable Definition Source PERCMAT materiality amount/total assets; Annual financial
reports/Worldscope LOGMAT natural logarithm of the materiality amount; Annual financial reports DACCR absolute discretionary accruals, estimated using the Jones
model including ROA, scaling all variables by average assets;
Worldscope
ABS_ABRET the absolute value of the sum of the three-day abnormal returns by company, calculated each day as the company returns = (Price Closet – Price Closet-1)/Price Closet-1 minus same-day returns for the LSE value-weighted portfolio;
Datastream
ABVOL the natural logarithm of the ratio of the company’s mean event-period volume divided by the company’s mean estimation-period volume. Event-period volume is daily volume on the two-day event window beginning on the report filing date, scaled by shares outstanding. Estimation-period volume is measured over the trading period beginning 61 days before the earnings announcement date and ending 40 days later (i.e., 21 days before the earnings announcement date);
Datastream
IOWN Natural logarithm of the number of the company's shares held by institutional investors/total number of shares outstanding as of the current fiscal year-end.
ThomsonOne Banker’s Ownership Module
CHNI (NI before extraordinary itemst – NI before extraordinary itemst-1)/Total Assetst-1;
Worldscope
STDRET standard deviation of daily stock returns in year t; Datastream BETA slope coefficient from regressing the daily return on the
company's stock on daily returns of the value-weighed portfolio, over 220 day period (-250, -21) relative to the filing date of the current year financial statements; and,
Datastream
MTB equity market value/book value Worldscope
48
Appendix C
Example of daily returns around earnings announcement and annual report’s public release dates (Ashtead Group plc SEDOL 0053673)
Figure 1: Daily returns graph including the annual earnings announcement on June 20, 2013, and the subsequent public release of the annual report on July 25, 2013. The company’s fiscal year-end was April 30, 2013 and this was the year before the adoption of the new rules.
Figure 2: Daily returns graph including the annual earnings announcement on June 17, 2014, and the subsequent public release of the annual report on July 31, 2014. The company’s fiscal year-end was April 30, 2014 and this was the first year after the adoption of the new rules.
-.08
-.06
-.04
-.02
0.0
2.0
4.0
6D
aily
sto
ck re
turn
Jun1
Jun2
0
Jul2
5
Aug1
5
Ashtead Group plc returns in the period from June 1 to August 15, 2013
49
Figure 3: Example of LSE RNS output showing public disclosures made by the company, including the annual earnings announcement on June 17, 2014 “Final Results”, and the public release of the company’s annual report on July 31, 2014 “Annual Financial Report”, on the first year of adoption of the new auditor’s report rules
-.06
-.04
-.02
0.0
2.0
4D
aily
sto
ck re
turn
Jun1
Jun1
7
Jul3
1
Aug1
5
Ashtead Group plc returns in the period from June 1 to August 15, 2014
50
This appendix shows an example of how we search dates in order to examine investors’ reaction to the annual report’s public release. The auditor’s report is included in the release of each company’s full annual report. The release of the full annual report follows an earlier earnings announcement disclosure. The U.K. Companies Act mandates that annual reports must be publicly available. Specifically, DTR 6.3 requires a public announcement when the report is submitted to the National Storage Mechanism (NSM) and available for viewing on each company’s website. We search announcements of annual filings using the Regulatory News Service (RNS) of the LSE, as well as the NSM. For the companies in our sample the earnings announcement is a very complete form of disclosure, containing full financial statements and mentioning whether the auditor’s opinion was unqualified. The LSE RNS website can be accessed searching each company at: http:// www.londonstockexchange.com/prices-and-markets/markets/prices.htm. An alternative source is the website http://www.investegate.co.uk.
51
Figure 1-A: Pre-post analyses
Figure 1-B: Difference-in-differences analyses
Figure 1-C: Cross-sectional analyses of new report’s disclosures
These figures illustrate the timelines for the three types of analyses in our study: pre-post analyses, using company data for four years around the regulatory cut-off; difference-in-differences analyses, using company data for six months before and after the regulatory cut-off date, as well as a year prior; and, cross-sectional analyses using company data for the two years after the regulatory cut-off date.
Two years before the adoption of new rules
September 2011 - August 2013
September 2013 Regulatory cut-off date
Two years after the adoption of new rules
September 2013 - August 2015
Adopters First year of new reports
September 2013 to February 2014
September 2013
Non-adopters March to August 2013
Adopters one-year prior
September 2012 to February 2013
September 2012
Non-adopters one-year prior
March to August 2012
September 2013
Two years after the adoption of new rules
September 2013 - August 2015
52
Table 1: Sample selection U.K. Companies on the LSE Main Market with premium listing as of December 31, 2013 691 Exclude financial companies and companies without SEDOL identifiers in Worldscope (351) Non-Financial companies with SEDOL identifiers in Worldscope 340
Audit fee analyses Number of observations Pre-post analyses Year t-2 Year t-1 Year t Year t+1 Total Data available by fiscal year 327 333 337 323 1,320 Data available for full panel 312 312 312 312 1,248 Risks analyses
336 315 651
Materiality analyses
334 323 657 Difference-in-differences analyses Non-adopters Adopters
Year t-1 Year t Year t-1 Year t 126 126 206 206 664
Analyses of audit quality Number of observations Pre-post analyses Year t-2 Year t-1 Year t Year t+1 Total Data available by fiscal year 279 289 295 245 1,108 Data available for full panel 228 228 228 228 912 Risks analyses
294 239 533
Materiality analyses
292 245 537 Difference-in-differences analyses Non-adopters Adopters
Year t-1 Year t Year t-1 Year t 110 110 176 176 572
Analyses of investors' reaction Number of observations Pre-post analyses Year t-2 Year t-1 Year t Year t+1 Total Data available by fiscal year 308 307 317 304 1,236 Data available for full panel 278 278 278 278 1,112 Risks analyses
315 290 605
Materiality analyses
313 298 611 Difference-in-differences analyses Non-adopters Adopters
Year t-1 Year t Year t-1 Year t 111 111 194 194 610
This table shows the samples for the analyses of audit fees, audit quality, and investor’s reaction: pre-post analyses, using company data for four years around the regulatory cut-off; difference-in-differences analyses, using company data for six months before and after the regulatory cut-off date, as well as a year prior; and, cross-sectional analyses using company data for the two years after the regulatory cut-off date.
53
Table 2: Audit fee analyses Panel A: Descriptive statistics POSTi,t =0 POSTi,t =1 Diff. in Variables N Mean Median Std. Dev. N Mean Median Std. Dev. means AFEESi,t 660 13.014 12.899 1.294 660 13.095 12.997 1.287
SIZEi,t 660 13.488 13.481 1.825 660 13.554 13.500 1.814 ROAi,t 660 0.056 0.057 0.088 660 0.045 0.054 0.102 **
LEVi,t 660 0.555 0.550 0.235 660 0.557 0.545 0.229 CURRi,t 660 0.420 0.402 0.224 660 0.421 0.394 0.221 NSEGi,t 660 0.942 1.099 0.650 660 0.934 1.099 0.683 FORSALESi,t 660 0.390 0.311 0.366 660 0.387 0.310 0.361 BIG4i,t 660 0.935 1.000 0.247 660 0.936 1.000 0.244 CHAUDi,t 660 0.023 0.000 0.149 660 0.056 0.000 0.230 ***
GCi,t 660 0.011 0.000 0.103 660 0.030 0.000 0.172 ** DECYEi,t 660 0.476 0.000 0.500 660 0.494 0.000 0.500
USLISTi,t 660 0.052 0.000 0.221 660 0.052 0.000 0.221 TOTAL_NWRDSi,t
651 7.785 7.769 0.296
RISK_NWRDSi,t
651 6.500 6.551 0.740 NRISKSi,t
651 3.928 4.000 1.465
PERCMATi,t
657 0.652 0.502 0.535 LOGMATi,t 657 8.311 8.281 1.687
54
Panel B: Pre-post adoption and difference-in-differences analyses Dependent variable = AFEESi,t
Variables Coeff. (t-stat)
Coeff. (t-stat)
POSTi,t 0.038*** (2.64)
ADOPTERi,t
0.049 (0.53) YR2013i,t
0.007
(0.33) ADOPTER*YR2013i,t
0.021
(0.77) SIZEi,t 0.565*** 0.567*** (24.65) (24.35) ROAi,t 0.007 -0.093 (0.02) (-0.27) LEVi,t 0.505*** 0.554*** (3.54) (3.77) CURRi,t 0.468*** 0.476*** (2.87) (2.93) NSEGi,t 0.159*** 0.161*** (3.67) (3.65) FORSALESi,t 0.718*** 0.760*** (7.56) (7.90) BIG4i,t 0.031 -0.008 (0.26) (-0.07) CHAUDi,t -0.106 -0.057 (-1.65) (-0.59) GCi,t 0.263* -0.057 (1.69) (-0.29) DECYEi,t 0.214*** 0.200** (3.64) (2.20) USLISTi,t 0.351*** 0.277** (2.78) (2.04) Intercept 3.564*** 3.709*** (13.15) (13.41) Industry F.E. Included Included N. Observations 1,320 664 Adj. R2 0.838 0.841
55
Panel C: Cross-sectional analyses of audit fees and length of the report and risks’ section Dependent variable = AFEESi,t
Variables Coeff. (t-stat)
Coeff. (t-stat)
Coeff. (t-stat)
TOTAL_NWRDSi,t 0.420*** (4.58)
RISK_NWRDSi,t
0.082*** (2.76)
NRISKSi,t
0.074*** (3.68) SIZEi,t 0.548*** 0.555*** 0.546*** (23.07) (23.01) (22.59) ROAi,t 0.177 0.055 0.127 (0.50) (0.16) (0.36) LEVi,t 0.407*** 0.448*** 0.386** (2.76) (2.96) (2.53) CURRi,t 0.527*** 0.500*** 0.512*** (3.23) (2.97) (3.13) NSEGi,t 0.139*** 0.139*** 0.140*** (3.00) (2.92) (2.98) FORSALESi,t 0.617*** 0.661*** 0.631*** (5.99) (6.40) (6.15) BIG4i,t 0.015 0.046 0.121 (0.11) (0.34) (0.90) CHAUDi,t -0.177** -0.170** -0.156** (-2.49) (-2.23) (-2.07) GCi,t 0.364** 0.402*** 0.374** (2.51) (2.60) (2.44) DECYEi,t 0.248*** 0.239*** 0.230*** (4.03) (3.80) (3.74) USLISTi,t 0.361*** 0.418*** 0.361*** (2.71) (3.04) (2.61) Intercept 0.692 3.387*** 3.647*** (1.00) (11.52) (12.75) Industry F.E. Included Included Included N. Observations 651 651 651 Adj. R2 0.837 0.832 0.835
56
Panel D: Cross-sectional analyses of audit fees and materiality Dependent variable = AFEESi,t
Variables Coeff. (t-stat)
Coeff. (t-stat)
PERCMATi,t 0.128 (1.13)
LOGMATi,t
0.117 (1.56) SIZEi,t 0.574*** 0.459*** (22.39) (6.47) ROAi,t -0.137 -0.197 (-0.49) (-0.68) LEVi,t 0.494*** 0.521*** (3.33) (3.57) CURRi,t 0.452** 0.445** (2.50) (2.53) NSEGi,t 0.148*** 0.148*** (3.24) (3.19) FORSALESi,t 0.678*** 0.681*** (6.73) (6.71) BIG4i,t 0.117 0.090 (0.80) (0.65) CHAUDi,t -0.163** -0.155** (-2.14) (-2.04) GCi,t 0.312* 0.352** (1.80) (2.12) DECYEi,t 0.221*** 0.220*** (3.70) (3.64) USLISTi,t 0.385*** 0.379*** (2.77) (2.75) Intercept 3.536*** 4.219*** (10.53) (9.87) Industry F.E. Included Included N. Observations 657 657 Adj. R2 0.831 0.831
Panel A of this table includes descriptive statistics for the dependent and independent variables for the analyses of audit fees. Panel B Column 1 shows coefficients and t-statistics for our pre-post adoption analyses of audit fees, using data from two years before and two years after the regulatory cut-off date (Model 1a). Panel B Column 2 shows coefficients and t-statistics for our differences-in-differences analyses, using firm-year observations with fiscal year-end six months before (March to August 2013) and after (September 2013 to February 2014) the regulatory cut-off in September 2013, as well as the same companies in the prior year (Model 1b, see Section 3 for additional details). Panel C shows the coefficients and t-statistics from our analyses of the association between audit fees and the total length of the report, the length of the risks’ discussion, and the number of risks (Model 1c). Panel D shows the coefficients and t-statistics from our analyses of the association between audit fees and materiality thresholds (Model 1c). In all panels A-D the continuous variables are winsorized at 1 and 99 percent. All variables are as described in Appendix B. ***, **, * indicate statistical significance from two-tailed tests at 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1, respectively. All t-statistics are clustered by company.
57
Table 3: Audit quality analyses Panel A: Descriptive statistics POSTi,t =0 POSTi,t =1 Diff. in Variables N Mean Median Std. Dev. N Mean Median Std. Dev. Means DACCRi,t 568 0.048 0.033 0.049 540 0.048 0.034 0.046
SIZEi,t 568 13.418 13.349 1.815 540 13.453 13.370 1.796 ROAi,t 568 0.055 0.057 0.091 540 0.044 0.054 0.106 *
LEVi,t 568 0.544 0.536 0.234 540 0.546 0.529 0.228 BIG4i,t 568 0.933 1.000 0.250 540 0.937 1.000 0.243 USLISTi,t 568 0.053 0.000 0.224 540 0.052 0.000 0.222 TOTAL_NWRDSi,t
533 7.767 7.749 0.294
RISK_NWRDSi,t
533 6.478 6.529 0.730 NRISKSi,t
533 3.886 4.000 1.465
PERCMATi,t
537 0.667 0.514 0.547 LOGMATi,t 537 8.233 8.243 1.682
58
Panel B: Pre-post adoption and difference-in-differences analyses Dependent variable = DACCRi,t Variables Coeff. Coeff. POSTi,t -0.001
(-0.27) ADOPTERi,t
0.009
(1.64) YR2013i,t
0.004
(0.95) ADOPTER*YR2013i,t
-0.007
(-1.11) SIZEi,t -0.004*** -0.005*** (-2.86) (-2.90) ROAi,t -0.104*** -0.136*** (-3.21) (-3.43) LEVi,t -0.003 -0.014 (-0.19) (-0.99) BIG4i,t -0.003 0.004 (-0.28) (0.32) USLISTi,t 0.010 0.012 (1.54) (1.49) Intercept 0.082*** 0.077*** (4.72) (3.58) Industry F.E. Included Included N. Observations 1,108 572 Adj. R2 0.115 0.137
59
Panel C: Cross-sectional analyses of audit quality and length of the report and risks’ section Dependent variable = DACCRi,t Variables Coeff. Coeff. Coeff. TOTAL_NWRDSi,t -0.008
(-0.90) RISK_NWRDSi,t
-0.003
(-0.68) NRISKSi,t
-0.001
(-0.29) SIZEi,t -0.005** -0.005*** -0.005*** (-2.55) (-2.63) (-2.81) ROAi,t -0.099*** -0.097*** -0.097*** (-2.73) (-2.72) (-2.68) LEVi,t 0.005 0.005 0.005 (0.30) (0.28) (0.25) BIG4i,t -0.006 -0.006 -0.007 (-0.46) (-0.50) (-0.52) USLISTi,t 0.015 0.013 0.014 (1.49) (1.38) (1.36) Intercept 0.152** 0.107*** 0.097*** (2.25) (3.57) (4.17) Industry F.E. Included Included Included N. Observations 533 533 533 Adj. R2 0.110 0.110 0.109
60
Panel D: Cross-sectional analyses of audit quality and materiality Dependent variable = DACCRi,t Variables Coeff. Coeff. PERCMATi,t 0.034***
(4.91) LOGMATi,t
0.021***
(3.70) SIZEi,t -0.002 -0.024*** (-1.16) (-4.49) ROAi,t -0.117*** -0.125*** (-3.92) (-4.01) LEVi,t 0.003 0.009 (0.24) (0.55) BIG4i,t 0.014 0.002 (1.22) (0.13) USLISTi,t 0.007 0.010 (0.81) (0.97) Intercept 0.032 0.179*** (1.17) (5.25) Industry F.E. Included Included N. Observations 537 537 Adj. R2 0.234 0.167 Panel A of this table includes descriptive statistics for the dependent and independent variables for the analyses of audit quality. Panel B Column 1 shows coefficients and t-statistics for our pre-post adoption analyses of audit quality, using data from two years before and two years after the regulatory cut-off date (Model 2a). Panel B Column 2 shows coefficients and t-statistics for our differences-in-differences analyses, using firm-year observations with fiscal year-end six months before (March to August 2013) and after (September 2013 to February 2014) the regulatory cut-off in September 2013, as well as the same companies in the prior year (Model 2b, see Section 3 for additional details). Panel C shows the coefficients and t-statistics from our analyses of the association between audit fees and the total length of the report, the length of the risks’ discussion, and the number of risks (Model 2c). Panel D shows the coefficients and t-statistics from our analyses of the association between audit fees and materiality thresholds (Model 2c). In all panels A-D the continuous variables are winsorized at 1 and 99 percent. All variables are as described in Appendix B. ***, **, * indicate statistical significance from two-tailed tests at 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1, respectively. All t-statistics are clustered by company.
61
Table 4: Analyses of investors’ reaction Panel A: Descriptive statistics POSTi,t =0 POSTi,t =1 Diff. in Variables N Mean Median Std. Dev. N Mean Median Std. Dev. means ABS_ABRETi,t 615 0.020 0.010 0.040 621 0.020 0.020 0.020 ABVOLi,t 615 0.002 0.085 0.994 621 -0.029 0.003 0.888
SIZEi,t 615 13.562 13.563 1.803 621 13.663 13.600 1.758 ROAi,t 615 0.056 0.056 0.085 621 0.049 0.054 0.092 LEVi,t 615 0.530 0.543 0.198 621 0.539 0.543 0.197 USLISTi,t 615 0.057 0.000 0.232 621 0.056 0.000 0.231 IOWNi,t 615 4.643 4.681 1.264 621 4.747 4.833 1.287 CHNIi,t 615 0.003 0.005 0.070 621 0.003 0.005 0.070 STDRETi,t 615 0.021 0.019 0.009 621 0.018 0.016 0.008 ***
MTBi,t 615 2.712 1.799 3.009 621 3.544 2.419 3.881 *** BETAi,t 615 1.041 0.950 0.735 621 1.043 1.038 0.697
TOTAL_NWRDSi,t
605 7.791 7.772 0.294 RISK_NWRDSi,t
605 6.517 6.554 0.707
NRISKSi,t
605 3.932 4.000 1.449 PERCMATi,t
611 0.614 0.494 0.439
LOGMATi,t 611 8.388 8.294 1.635
62
Panel B: Pre-post adoption and difference-in-differences analyses Dependent variable = ABS_ABRETi,t Dependent variable = ABVOLi,t Variables Coeff. Coeff. Coeff. Coeff. POSTi,t 0.002
-0.022
(1.29) (-0.39) ADOPTERi,t
0.010*
0.110
(1.68) (1.02) YR2013i,t
0.008**
0.246*
(2.29) (1.73) ADOPTER*YR2013i,t
-0.010
-0.173
(-1.54) (-1.03) SIZEi,t -0.000 0.002 0.123*** 0.140** (-0.01) (1.04) (2.76) (2.37) ROAi,t 0.004 0.021 1.811*** 1.228 (0.31) (0.96) (2.98) (1.64) LEVi,t 0.007 0.009 -0.036 -0.546* (0.89) (0.63) (-0.17) (-1.86) USLISTi,t -0.000 -0.004 -0.222* -0.259 (-0.04) (-0.84) (-1.90) (-1.55) IOWNi,t -0.001 -0.000 -0.052 -0.056 (-0.46) (-0.14) (-1.02) (-0.77) CHNIi,t 0.028 0.048 -0.574 -0.159 (1.26) (1.19) (-1.00) (-0.19) STDRETi,t 1.077*** 1.717*** 2.204 1.984 (4.41) (2.97) (0.42) (0.24) MTBi,t 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.021* (0.21) (0.52) (0.27) (1.69) BETAi,t -0.001 -0.004 0.011 0.018 (-0.54) (-0.98) (0.18) (0.24) Intercept 0.005 -0.040* -1.881** -1.688* (0.51) (-1.69) (-2.53) (-1.82) Industry F.E. Included Included Included Included N. Observations 1,236 610 1,236 610 Adj. R2 0.078 0.093 0.037 0.027
63
Panel C: Cross-sectional analyses of investors’ reaction and length of the report and risks’ section Dependent variable = ABS_ABRETi,t Dependent variable = ABVOLi,t Variables Coeff. Coeff. Coeff. Coeff. Coeff. Coeff. TOTAL_NWRDSi,t -0.007*
-0.079
(-1.74) (-0.59) RISK_NWRDSi,t
-0.003**
-0.056
(-2.09) (-1.09) NRISKSi,t
0.001
0.025
(1.61) (0.96) SIZEi,t 0.001 0.001 -0.000 0.077 0.079 0.066 (0.43) (0.39) (-0.11) (1.46) (1.47) (1.22) ROAi,t 0.000 0.000 0.007 2.513*** 2.488*** 2.623*** (0.01) (0.01) (0.35) (2.75) (2.76) (2.90) LEVi,t 0.009 0.009 0.006 0.307 0.312 0.262 (1.17) (1.18) (0.87) (1.12) (1.15) (0.95) USLISTi,t 0.001 -0.000 -0.001 0.009 -0.003 -0.017 (0.26) (-0.00) (-0.19) (0.06) (-0.02) (-0.12) IOWNi,t -0.002 -0.002 -0.002 -0.039 -0.039 -0.041 (-1.17) (-1.14) (-1.19) (-0.60) (-0.59) (-0.61) CHNIi,t 0.029 0.030 0.028 -0.666 -0.643 -0.681 (1.16) (1.20) (1.11) (-0.87) (-0.83) (-0.89) STDRETi,t 0.905*** 0.900*** 0.886*** 0.761 0.770 0.487 (4.96) (4.94) (4.93) (0.10) (0.11) (0.07) MTBi,t 0.000 0.000 0.000 -0.007 -0.007 -0.007 (0.56) (0.54) (0.45) (-0.63) (-0.60) (-0.67) BETAi,t 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.018 0.016 0.025 (0.32) (0.31) (0.49) (0.24) (0.22) (0.33) Intercept 0.058** 0.024 0.011 -0.855 -1.184 -1.426* (2.06) (1.48) (0.73) (-0.66) (-1.38) (-1.73) Industry F.E. Included Included Included Included Included Included N. Observations 605 605 605 605 605 605 Adj. R2 0.093 0.094 0.092 0.046 0.047 0.046
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Panel D: Cross-sectional analyses of investors’ reaction and materiality Dependent variable = ABS_ABRETi,t Dependent variable = ABVOLi,t Variables Coeff. Coeff. Coeff. Coeff. PERCMATi,t -0.001
0.129
(-0.14) (1.08) LOGMATi,t
0.000
0.127
(0.05) (1.43) SIZEi,t -0.000 -0.000 0.075 -0.044 (-0.03) (-0.04) (1.43) (-0.44) ROAi,t 0.003 0.003 2.550*** 2.454*** (0.15) (0.14) (2.83) (2.62) LEVi,t 0.008 0.009 0.419 0.453 (1.10) (1.14) (1.51) (1.61) USLISTi,t 0.000 0.000 -0.004 -0.010 (0.15) (0.10) (-0.03) (-0.07) IOWNi,t -0.002 -0.002 -0.033 -0.041 (-1.01) (-1.02) (-0.51) (-0.63) CHNIi,t 0.028 0.028 -0.765 -0.714 (1.08) (1.08) (-0.98) (-0.91) STDRETi,t 0.893*** 0.889*** 0.062 0.362 (4.94) (4.88) (0.01) (0.05) MTBi,t 0.000 0.000 -0.014 -0.016 (0.34) (0.27) (-1.23) (-1.38) BETAi,t 0.001 0.001 0.018 0.016 (0.47) (0.46) (0.24) (0.21) Intercept 0.014 0.014 -1.549* -0.892 (0.84) (0.74) (-1.89) (-0.94) Industry F.E. Included Included Included Included N. Observations 611 611 611 611 Adj. R2 0.089 0.089 0.047 0.049 Panel A of this table includes descriptive statistics for the dependent and independent variables for the analyses of investors’ reaction. Panel B Column 1 examining absolute abnormal returns and Column 3 examining abnormal volume on the report filing date, show coefficients and t-statistics for our pre-post adoption analyses of audit quality, using data from two years before and two years after the regulatory cut-off date (Model 3a). Panel B Column 2 examining absolute abnormal returns and Column 4 examining abnormal volume on the report filing date, show coefficients and t-statistics for our differences-in-differences analyses, using firm-year observations with fiscal year-end six months before (March to August 2013) and after (September 2013 to February 2014) the regulatory cut-off in September 2013, as well as the same companies in the prior year (Model 3b, see Section 3 for additional details). Panel C shows the coefficients and t-statistics from our analyses of the association between investors’ reaction and the total length of the report, the length of the risks’ discussion, and the number of risks (Model 3c). Panel D shows the coefficients and t-statistics from our analyses of the association between audit fees and materiality thresholds (Model 3c). In all panels A-D the continuous independent variables are winsorized at 1 and 99 percent. All variables are as described in Appendix B. ***, **, * indicate statistical significance from two-tailed tests at 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1, respectively. All t-statistics are clustered by company.
65
Table 5: Risk classification for the first and second year of adoption of the new rules
Percentage of companies reporting each type of risk Year t (First year of adoption) Year t+1 (Second year of adoption)
Revenue recognition 71% Revenue recognition 61% Asset impairments, including goodwill 36% Business combinations 39% Internal controls 35% Asset impairment, including goodwill 39% Business combinations 34% Tax accounting 36% Tax accounting 33% Receivables and provisions 30% Receivables and provisions 28% Pensions 26% Pensions 25% Inventory 25% Inventory 23% Intangibles and long-lived assets 24% Intangibles and long-lived assets 23% Other presentation and disclosure issues 19% Other presentation and disclosure issues 15% Other assets and liabilities valuation 18% Other assets and liabilities valuation 14% Going concern considerations 11% Going concern considerations 9% Litigation provisions and disclosure 8% Discontinued ops. and restructuring 7% Discontinued ops. and restructuring 7% Investments valuation 7% Internal controls 6% Litigation provisions and disclosure 7% Investments valuation 6% Other issues 6% Other issues 6% This table shows the percentage of companies reporting each risk type in years t and t+1 after the adoption of the new rules. We classify individual risks in 16 categories, based on our interpretation of the main issue by reading the risk headings and disclosures.