Impact of Corporate Governance on Financial Practices of New Zealand Companies

This study examines the effects of firm level corporate governance on financing policiesof New Zealand firms. Using a unique self-constructed corporate governance index andemploying the methodology of Fama and French (1999) of financing of firms, we can reportthat firms with weak corporate governance generally issue more debt and have significantlyhigher cost of capital than do firms with strong governance. It is further observed thatcorporate governance does not have significant impact on dividend policy in New Zealand

Natural disasters: blessings in disguise?

This study examines the impact of natural disasters on market returns and on several industries that are likely to be affected by the disasters. We find that different natural disasters have different impacts on the returns of the market and on those of industries. Our evidence suggests that while earthquake, hurricane and tornado could negatively affect market returns several weeks after the events, other disasters such as flood, tsunami and volcanic eruption may have limited impact on market returns. We also find that construction and materials industry is positively affected by natural disasters but nonlife and travel industries are likely to suffer when a natural disaster strikes

The role of internal and external certification mechanisms in seasoned equity offerings

When conducting their seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), US firms have been increasingly relying on shelf offering or accelerated offering rather than non-shelf offering or traditional book building, the predominant issuance methods in the past. Previous studies find that the unpopularity of shelf or accelerated offering in the past is due to the under-certification problem. Therefore, the change in firms’ preferred issuance methods suggests that firms must have obtained adequate certification through various ways. In this paper, we study several potential internal and external certification mechanisms that issuers can utilize and explore their roles in the SEO process. We find that the internal certification via sound corporate governance affects firms’ choice of the issuance method between shelf (accelerated) and nonshelf (non-accelerated) offerings, while the external certification through acquiring high-quality auditing services impacts the issuance costs

Corporate governance and the variability of stock returns: evidence from New Zealand companies

In this paper, we document the beneficial impact of firm level corporate governance practices on the riskiness of firms’ stock returns. Using a self-constructed corporate governance index, we show that well-governed New Zealand firms experience lower levels of unsystematic risk, ceteris paribus. In particular, our results show that corporate governance components such as board composition, shareholder rights, and disclosure practices are associated with lower levels of unsystematic risk

Accruals: signalling or misleading? Evidence from New Zealand

Studies on earnings management usually hypothesise that managers manage accruals opportunistically. Few studies however, argue that managers can also use accruals to improve the value relevance of reported earnings to help investors better assess the firm's operating performance. While substantial evidence on managers' opportunistic behaviour on accruals has been documented in the literature, empirical evidence on the informativeness of accruals is scarce and inconclusive. The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether managers use accruals to communicate private information regarding the firm's operating performance, or as reported in the literature, use them for their own benefit. This thesis finds that on average, firms reporting high earnings accompanied by high accruals have significantly negative subsequent period stock returns suggesting that these firms manage their accounting earnings. Focusing on stock dividend issues as an incentive to opportunistically increase accruals, the results are found to be consistent with the earnings management hypothesis. Stock dividend issuing firms are reported to significantly increase accruals in the issue year followed by poor earnings and stock price performances in the subsequent year. Moreover, discretionary accruals of the issuing firms are negatively correlated with both future earnings and abnormal stock returns. This evidence attempts to complement the earnings management literature. The analysis on the incentive to decrease accruals related to share repurchases, however, does not provide sufficient evidence to suggest that managers use their discretion to decrease accruals. To investigate the hypothesis that managers use accruals to convey information regarding their firm's future profitability, this thesis employs the contemporaneous earnings and dividend announcements as the research setting. This choice was made to increase the likelihood of detecting the use of accruals as private information communication while simultaneously mitigating the likelihood of the opportunistic income smoothing hypothesis to explain the results. The evidence strongly indicates that managers use both accruals and dividend increases as their private information communication regarding their firm's future profitability. Dividend increasing firms report positive accruals which are positively correlated with future profitability. This finding contributes to the literature by providing evidence on the accrual signalling hypothesis. Overall, the results of this thesis suggest that, depending on the incentives, managers can use the discretion accorded under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in estimating accounting accrual, either to manage accruals opportunistically or to help investors better assess the firms' operating performance

Net Buying Pressure and Informed Trading in the Options Market: Evidence from Earnings Announcements

By employing the modified net buying pressure as a measure of informed option trading, this study tested whether option trading around quarterly earnings announcements is either directionally motivated and/or volatility motivated. We found evidence that is consistent with the idea that option investors have private information prior to positive earnings announcements and use at-the-money options to exploit their informational advantage. In the post-event period, however, informed option investors trade by using deep-out-of-the-money and out-of-the-money options. We documented limited evidence on the volatility-motivated option trading, and our results suggest that this type of option trading could be motivated by hedging purposes only

Does Board Independence Matter? Evidence from New Zealand

This paper examines the effects of the presence of independent directors on firm value using both market-based performance measures (Tobin’s Q ratio and EVA) and accounting-based ratios (ROA and ROE). We find that, instead of adding value, independent directors in NewZealand negatively affect firm value. We also find that, consistent with stewardship theory,independent directors have a positive effect on firm value only when they are in the minority.These findings are important given the increasing trend toward independence in corporate boards around the globe and suggest that board independence may not generally be suitable for countries where managers are considered as active partners along with other stakeholders in companies

Earnings management and the market performance of stock dividend issuing firms: NZ evidence

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend the literature on earnings management by examining whether stock dividends provide management with an incentive to manipulate earnings. Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs a refined accrual model that controls the performance effects in estimating the part of accruals subject to managerial discretion. Findings – Stock dividend issuing firms increase accruals substantially in the issue year followed by poor earnings and stock price performance in the subsequent year. More importantly, discretionary accruals of stock dividend issuing firms are negatively correlated with the declines in both future earnings and abnormal stock returns. Originality/value – This paper examines the hypothesis that stock dividend firms engage in earnings management.Dividends, Earnings, Financial management, New Zealand, Stocks