THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW American Accounting Association Vol. 91, No. 3 DOI: 10.2308/accr-51222 May 2016 pp. 835–857
Banks’ Acquisition of Private Information about Financial Misreporting
Po-Chang Chen Miami University
ABSTRACT: This study investigates whether banks respond to financial misreporting as the borrowing firms release misstated financial reports, i.e., in the misreporting period. Drawing upon finance theory that recognizes banks’ superior information access and processing abilities, this study predicts and finds that banks adjust loan contract terms in response to the ongoing misreporting. Compared with loans issued in the prior period, loans issued in the misreporting period have higher interest spread, are more likely to be secured by collateral, and have more restrictive covenants. Further analyses show that banks acquire indirect, rather than direct, information about the misreporting and that they do not fully adjust loan pricing until after the restatement announcement. Together, these findings suggest that banks make timely, but insufficient, adjustments during the misreporting period. Nevertheless, banks’ early reactions appear to be unique, as equity investors do not respond to the ongoing misreporting, but react to the loan information when it becomes public.
Keywords: banks; loan contracting; financial misreporting; restatement. JEL Classifications: D82; G21; M41.
I. INTRODUCTION
F inancial misreporting impairs the credibility of a company’s financial information and increases the perceived
information asymmetry between management and capital providers (e.g., Palmrose, Richardson, and Scholz 2004; Graham, Li, and Qiu 2008). As a result, firms involved in restating their previously issued financial statements are usually faced with adverse consequences in the capital market. The extant literature has documented negative stock market returns around the restatement announcement (e.g., Anderson and Yohn 2002; Palmrose et al. 2004) and an increased cost of equity (e.g., Hribar and Jenkins 2004; Kravet and Shevlin 2010), as well as cost of debt (e.g., Graham et al. 2008; Shi and Zhang 2008) for firms immediately after the restatement. However, prior studies focus on the consequences of restatements after they are publicly announced, and little attention has been paid to whether banks make any reactions while the financial misreporting is still in progress, i.e., in the misreporting period. To fill this void, this study attempts to provide systematic evidence on banks’ reactions to the ongoing financial misconduct by borrowing firms. Specifically, I investigate whether banks adjust important contract terms on loans issued to misstating firms in the misreporting period.1
I examine banks’ reactions for several reasons. First, reacting to financial misstatements during the misreporting period requires the use of information—allowing identification of risk(s) associated with the misreporting—that has not yet been publicly revealed. Finance theory suggests that banks have superior information gathering and processing abilities compared to other capital providers (e.g., Fama 1985; Sharpe 1990; Diamond 1991). In particular, bank loans are different from other types
I greatly appreciate the guidance from my dissertation committee: A. Rashad Abdel-khalik (chair), Ganapathi Narayanamoorthy, Kevin Jackson, and Heitor Almeida. I also thank Beverly R. Walther (editor), two anonymous reviewers, Paul Beck, Dain Donelson, Yiwei Dou, Timothy Eaton, Anne Farrell, Jonathan Grenier, Andrew Reffett, Theodore Sougiannis, Anne Thompson, and workshop participants at the University of Illinois, Miami University, and the 2012 American Accounting Association Annual Meeting for their insightful comments and discussions. I gratefully acknowledge financial support from the University of Illinois and Miami University.
This paper is based on my dissertation at the University of Illinois. Editor’s note: Accepted by Beverly R. Walther.
Submitted: October 2012
Accepted: July 2015 Published Online: July 2015
1 I use the terms ‘‘misreporting firms,’’ ‘‘misstating firms,’’ and ‘‘restatement firms’’ interchangeably throughout this study, as they all refer to firms that issue misreported financial statements and subsequently restate them in a later period.
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