Does Writing Down Goodwill Imperil a CEO’s Job?

54 Pages Posted: 9 Jan 2021 Last revised: 31 Dec 2021

See all articles by Arnold R. Cowan

Arnold R. Cowan

Iowa State University

Cynthia Jeffrey

Iowa State University

Qian Wang

Iowa State University - College of Business

Date Written: December 11, 2021

Abstract

We find that accounting charges for goodwill impairment, which imply a deterioration in the capabilities of acquired assets to generate expected cash flows, provide useful indicators of CEO underperformance. We examine 5,990 firms that completed acquisitions and investigate the relation between CEO turnover and goodwill impairment during 2002–2016. The results show that the size and presence of a goodwill impairment charge are positively associated with forced, but not voluntary, CEO turnovers. This implies that goodwill impairment provides information before CEO changes occur. We also find that goodwill impairment has incremental power to predict forced turnover when it is unexpected based on book value relative to market value of equity and when it runs counter to overall firm performance. The association between goodwill impairment and forced CEO turnover varies with audit quality, consistent with the importance of the perceived reliability of accounting information for its effect on CEO retention decisions. Given that the FASB may eliminate annual goodwill impairment testing (FASB, 2019a), research addressing the informativeness of goodwill impairment charges is timely.

Keywords: Goodwill impairment, CEO turnover, mergers and acquisitions

JEL Classification: G32, G34, M41

Suggested Citation

Cowan, Arnold R. and Jeffrey, Cynthia G. and Wang, Qian, Does Writing Down Goodwill Imperil a CEO’s Job? (December 11, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3724709 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3724709

Arnold R. Cowan (Contact Author)

Iowa State University ( email )

College of Business
3344 Gerdin Business Building
Ames, IA 50011-1350
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.bus.iastate.edu/arnie

Cynthia G. Jeffrey

Iowa State University ( email )

396 Carver Hall
320 Carver Hall
Ames, IA 50011-2063
United States
515-294-9427 (Phone)

Qian Wang

Iowa State University - College of Business ( email )

Ames, IA 50011-2063
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
217
Abstract Views
1,005
Rank
285,817
PlumX Metrics