Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of initial public offerings (IPO)-year opportunistic earnings management on long-term market and earnings performance. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 150 book-built IPOs over 2001-2006 are analysed based on industry adjusted return on sales and industry adjusted return on assets for six post-IPO years. The quality of earnings is measured in two ways using discretionary accruals and Beneish manipulation score. Modified Jones model is used to estimate the expected accruals and to compute the discretionary accruals for each IPO firm year. Regression model is used to examine the impact of IPO-year quality of earnings on future earnings performance. Findings The paper finds that earnings and market performance of IPO companies are abnormally higher in the IPO-year, as compared to the post-IPO years. Similarly, the quality of earnings during the IPO-year is lower than those in the post-IPO years. The results also show that the opportunistic earnings management in IPO-year has significant negative impact on the long-term adjusted earnings and market performance. Research limitations/implications The present study is confined to the period from 2001 to 2006 for the purpose of post-IPO analysis for a period of six post-IPO years. Thus, the conclusions of this study are to be viewed with this limitation. Originality/value This paper is the first study based on the Indian context to examine the relationship between the quality of earnings of the IPO firm and long-term earnings and market performance.

Existing literature focuses on the evaluation of the readability of annual reports of non-banking companies. However, banking companies’ opaque nature and a double motivation to abuse accounting discretion requires a separate study on the readability of banks’ annual reports in association with their performance. We, therefore, attempt to explore firm performance and readability of banking firms’ annual reports in India. Net interest margin (NIM) and Fog Index are used as performance and readability variables respectively. We find that management discussion and analysis (MD&A) of the Indian banks is difficult to read. However, when we compare it with existing literature, Indian banks’ MD&A is difficult but not unreadable. Panel data regression analysis shows that firm performance would have a negative impact on the Fog Index. Further analysis of good and weak performing banking firms shows that the effect of NIM on Fog Index is higher in the case of weak performing banks. Empirical results affirm that firms with weak performance would structure their annual reports to veil adverse information in unfavourable situations. Consistent with the opaque nature of banks and incomplete revelation, managers of banks make MD&A harder to read to cover up the causes of weak performance. Application of readability index in case of banking companies in an emerging economy in association with performance is the contribution of this paper. An assessment of the readability of annual reports is an interesting topic for research to better understand the recent negative developments in Indian banking industry such as high non-performing assets, continuously declining return on assets, sharp increase in banking frauds and poor governance.

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the rounding-up in reported income numbers of Indian companies by examining the evidence of unusual occurrence of zero and nine in reported income numbers such as profit after tax and earnings per share (EPS). It also examines such rounding-up patterns under different scenarios such as companies varying across different time periods, income size, market capitalization, industries, initial public offering and earnings news. Design/methodology/approach – All 1,707 companies listed on National Stock Exchange of India were considered for analysis. This study covered a period of 21 years from 1991-1992 to 2011-2012. Data were collected from PROWESS database. Findings – In Indian companies, the rounding-up pattern in reported income numbers is in conformity with existing studies (Carslaw, 1988; Thomas, 1989). In case of income numbers, the observed proportionate occurrence of zero and nine is significantly different from the expected proportionate occurrence. The study found that anomalies in reported earnings vary across industry. Further, it is found that the per cent deviations are more in case of companies having high income levels, high market capitalization and with positive news. Research limitations/implications – In future studies, it will be interesting to develop a model reflecting the causes for such rounding-up of income numbers. Practical implications – The paper provides an insight analysis on the rounding-up behavior of Indian companies and facilitates the understanding of occurrence of such anomalies under various scenarios. This paper may be useful to all the users of accounting information. Originality/value – First study on examining the rounding-up of reported income numbers and EPS by companies in India.

The present study makes an attempt to examine the quality of reported income numbers of unlisted firms in India. The Benford"s Law is applied to examine the digital occurrence of reported income numbers of unlisted firms. The analysis is based on 43,996 reported annual income numbers of 22,147 sample firms during the financial years from 2000-01 to 2011-12. Further, the results are analyzed under four different scenarios viz., ownership, size, age and nature of industry. The empirical results show that the observed proportionate occurrence of zero is significantly less than the expected proportionate occurrence. These results are contrary to the findings of the related studies of listed companies. The results indicate lower quality of reported income numbers of unlisted firms. Based on the scenario analysis, the empirical results indicate that the proportionate occurrence of second single digits of state-owned unlisted firms confirm the Benford"s Law. The present study contributes to the literature by examining the quality of reported income numbers of unlisted firms using the Benford"s Law.

No abstract