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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the incremental information content of estimates of cash flow components in predicting future cash flows.

The authors examine whether the models incorporating components of operating cash flow from income statements and balance sheets using the direct method are associated with smaller prediction errors than the models incorporating core and non-core cash flow.

Using data from US and UK firms and multiple regression analysis, the authors find that around 60 per cent of a current year’s cash flow will persist into the next period’s cash flows, and that income statement and balance sheet variables persist similarly. The explanatory power and predictive ability of disaggregated cash flow models are superior to that of an aggregated model, and further disaggregating previously applied core and non-core cash flows provides incremental information about income statement and balance sheet items that enhances prediction of future cash flows. Disaggregated models and their components produce lower out-of-sample prediction errors than an aggregated model.

This study improves our appreciation of the behaviour of cash flow components and confirms the need for detailed cash flow information in accordance with the articulation of financial statements.

The findings are relevant to investors and analysts in predicting future cash flows and to regulators with respect to disclosure requirements and recommendations.

The findings are also relevant to financial statement users interested in better predicting a firm’s future cash flows and thereby, its firm’s value.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by further disaggregating cash flow items into their underlying items from income statements and balance sheets.

The main objective of this paper is to compare the ability of US-generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) operating cash flows versus Iran-GAAP operating cash flows in predicting future cash flows.

The sample comprises 240 firms (1,200 firm-years) during the period from 2004 to 2008 for which operating cash flows and other variables are available. Cross-sectional and panel data regression models are used in testing the hypotheses.

This study finds that operating cash flows based on Iran-GAAP are no more effective in predicting future cash flows than those based on USA-GAAP, and the predictive ability of the model is improved by adding the earnings accrual components to the operating cash flows.

The study suggests that the Iranian accounting standard setting committee recommends that the statement of cash flows be prepared based on the three-category model instead of the five-category model in an attempt to converge with the International Financial Reporting Standards. Consistent with Financial Accounting Standards Board and financial analyst recommendations, the results reveal that earnings are a better predictor than cash flows from operations.

This study aims to investigate whether managers of Japanese firms that adopt international financial reporting standards (IFRS) engage in earnings management by shifting core expenses to reported discontinued operations. Based on this purpose, the author also investigates the impact of continuing operations reporting on core earnings.

This study uses regression analysis mainly using the expected-core-earnings model (McVay, 2006) on a sample of Japanese firms adopting IFRS. The sample consists of 317 firm-year observations representing 48 Japanese firms that adopted IFRS from 2010 to 2018, noting that Japan has adopted IFRS since 2010.

The author finds that firms shift operating expenses of continuing operations to discontinued operations to increase core earnings. Additionally, the author desegregates reported discontinued operations into core and non-core earnings because previous literature assumes that firms engage in classification shifting using special items. Results reveal that firms use the classification shifting using negative non-core earnings of discontinued operations. Furthermore, the income-increasing discontinued operations negatively influence both current and future core earnings while income-decreasing discontinued operations do not.

The result could rely on the efficiency of the expected core earnings model. The author intentionally use only the Japanese sample rather than a global sample to control the characteristics of each country that can be noise; it could be a bias of this study.

The author revealed that firms engaged in the classification shifting using negative non-core earnings of discontinued operations. Providing detailed information on discontinued operations, segmented core earnings and non-core earnings (special items) is necessary. Deficiency of details on discontinued operations can create information asymmetry between managers and investors. It can encourage managers to engage in opportunistically earnings management using discontinued operations, taking advantage of investors’ ignorance of the nature of the expenses allocated to discontinued operations.

This study would be beneficial to investors by informing them of the potential usefulness and risks of IFRS because it is believed that IFRS is to be the predominant set of accounting standards in the world.

The author exposes a potential earnings management practice under IFRS by extending the literature on classification shifting through examining the relationship between unexpected core earnings and discontinued operations. The author extends prior research for classification, developing it to an investigation of the impact on core earnings, finding that income-increasing discontinued operations negatively influence core earnings, whereas income-decreasing discontinued operations do not. This study indicates that standard setters should pay close attention to the potential problems of line-item separations of discontinued operations.

The composition of bank liabilities has captured a lot of attention especially after the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. It is argued that a compositional change in non-core liabilities reflects the different stages of financial cycle. Banks usually fund their credits with core liabilities, which grow with households’ wealth, but when there is a faster growth in credits compared to deposits, the banks often resort to non-core liabilities to meet the excess demand for loans. This chapter analyses the relationship between non-core liabilities and credits in a small open economy, namely Turkey. It investigates the relationship under alternative settings and presents consistent evidence on a robust relationship between credits and non-core liabilities under all frameworks. The study also verifies that elevated demand for credit may induce some increase in non-core liabilities. Finally, the relationship between non-core liabilities and credit growth is also affirmed in the long run.

This paper starts from the observation that small businesses in France report a significant fraction of their net income in the form of non-core earnings. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to examine the persistence and informativeness of both core and non-core earnings of small businesses listed on the Euronext Paris market.

Panel regressions estimated with heteroskedasticity robust standard errors are used to investigate the relationships between earnings components, future performance and stock market valuation of small businesses.

The findings show that core and non-core earnings of the current year (t), contrary to those of the previous year (t−1), make it possible to predict the performance of the next year (t+1). However, only the persistence of current core earnings is valued by the stock market.

The study puts forward an anomaly of market efficiency. Thus, it shows that investors in the French stock market do not appropriately price a part of the available financial information (i.e. non-core earnings) that may contribute to a better assessment of the future performance of listed small businesses.

The persistence of non-core earnings is certainly less important than that of core elements but able to help investors appraise the future performance of listed small businesses. Hence, it represents useful financial information for investors.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by investigating the relationships between earnings, future performance and stock market valuation of listed SMEs, especially. Thus, the findings of this research allow a better understanding of earnings components properties (i.e. persistence) and their implication on the stock market valuation (i.e. informativeness) of listed SMEs. Given the observed specificities of earnings for this category of firms, these findings may be of particular interest to both researchers and investors.

I study a series of restructuring activities undertaken by Guoco Group Limited in recent years and the implications on minority shareholders. The divestment of Dao Heng Bank Group to DBS Group reaped substantial benefits for Guoco, including an enormous cash reserves to fund future investments. However, the cash hoard was not implemented to the best use by Guoco’s managers. Subsequently, Guoco was involved in a number of share buybacks schemes. The share‐buybacks met strong resistance from the minority shareholders and eventually forced out the second largest shareholders. Guoco was also engaged in related party transaction involving its subsidiaries in the property development business. Overall, I find evidences suggesting that corporate restructuring activities enhance the controlling owner’s grip on the group at the expense of the minority shareholders.

This study aims to examine whether debt financing creates incentives for private firms to engage in earnings management via classification shifting. Especially, the authors examine whether debt-induced financial reporting incentives differ depending on the type of debt (i.e. public bonds versus private loans) and whether such incentives are influenced by the characteristics of external auditors (i.e. initial audits and auditor size).

The study uses data on 93,427 Korean private firms from 2001 to 2016. Classification shifting is measured by the positive correlation between non-core expenses and unexpected core earnings estimated with ordinary least squares.

The empirical analyses reveal that private firms engage in classification shifting as do public firms. Importantly, classification shifting is observed only in private firms that have outstanding debt, but not in private firms without debt. Among debt-financing private firms, classification shifting is more prevalent for firms that issue public debt than for firms that only use private debt. In addition, classification shifting of debt-financing private firms is more successful when they are audited by new auditors that are one of the non-Big 4 firms.

The study provides evidence of classification shifting in private firms, which is novel to the literature. However, the inferences in the study depend on the validity of the model for detecting classification shifting.

This study helps lenders enhance their understanding on the financial reporting behaviors of borrowing firms. The results in this study suggest that lenders should be cautious in using core earnings for their investment decisions.

This study contributes to the literature by providing novel evidence of classification shifting in private firms. In addition, the authors contribute to the literature on debt-induced incentives for financial reporting.

Corporate real estate management (CREM) is the most important minor matter in nonproperty companies. Therefore CREM must commit to and deliver significant financial results in order to improve core business competitiveness. Ultimate valid criteria for success are contributions to earnings per share (EPS) and free cash flow. Pragmatic ‘on‐site’ solutions are required by business units within their planning horizons, thus speed is key to success. This Aventis Real Estate case study presents an example of how a ‘non‐core activity’ has become an ‘other‐core activity’ within a globally operating pharmaceutical company. This paper demonstrates how measurable results can be repetitively delivered with a lean team and optimised financial deployment.

The primary teaching objective is to discuss the capital raising efforts of a firm under financial distress. It also provides supporting data to calculate cost of capital, DuPont/modified DuPont values and Altman’s Z-Score that can appropriately be incorporated into the discussion. Case-B provides information and data of the company’s recent performance and to changes in bankruptcy law in India. Overall, this case study provides ample scope to discuss, understand and provide the solution to the following key corporate finance themes as follows: 1. Analyzing accounting statements and examine potential earnings quality issue. 2. Predicting default and bankruptcy using qualitative analysis, financial ratios, traditional and modified DuPont models and Altman’s Z score model. 3. Examining the capital raising efforts of a distressed firm, which has already defaulted on borrowings. 4. To explore the impact of changes in regulation on the turnaround efforts of the firm as well as on the promoters of the firm.

Since 2005, Amtek Auto moved at a breathtaking speed with the goal of reaching $10bn in sales, from the current level of about $1.2bn. The group had acquired more than a dozen companies spending about Rs.5,000cr. ($850m) during this period primarily through borrowed funds. However, the market and business expansion was not happening as expected. The company’s capacity utilization was just about 40% (approx.) during much of this period. The mounting fixed costs of operation and debt servicing grew to the level of unsustainability, led the firm to default on its borrowing. Now the company had to quickly recapitalize itself to run its operations and retain the premier position in auto component industry. The company and its promoters were considering various methods of debt restructuring, asset sale and further equity infusion.

Introductory and elective level corporate finance.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of audit quality on the market pricing of earnings and earnings components in China.

The paper measures audit quality using three tiers of audit firm designation, namely International Big 4 audit firms, local Top 10 audit firms and, finally, the local second-tier audit firms. Earnings are decomposed into accruals and cash flow components and accruals are further decomposed into discretionary and non-discretionary accruals.

The paper finds that, although earnings and its components are priced positively by the Chinese stock market, Big 4 audit does not provide any incremental benefit to clients in terms of market pricing of clients’ financial numbers. The paper finds a negative impact of local Top10 audit on the pricing of earnings in China. However, the paper finds no incremental effect of local Top 10 audit on the market pricing of earnings components.

Although prior research in China has used modified audit opinion as the audit quality matrix, the paper considers market valuation of earnings and earnings components for firms audited by different categories of auditors.