The Value Relevance of the Qualified Going Concern Opinion

Abstract:     
This paper examines the impact of going concern opinions on the market value of firms. Our results suggest that firms with going concern opinions tend to have lower market value than firms without such opinion modification. In addition, we find that the pricing multiples of earnings are lower for firms with the going concern opinions. For firms with going concern opinions, their market value is predominately determined by the book value of equity. The impact of going concern opinions on the firm valuation and the pricing multiples is incremental to that of the financial distress level of a firm. However, our results do not support any differential valuation implication of expected versus unexpected going concern opinions. We also do not observe any difference in the valuation implication of going concern opinions for firms in intangible-intensive industries versus those in other industries.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 47

Keywords: Going concern opinions, Value relevance, Financial distress, Pricing multiples

JEL Classification: M41

working papers series