Since the financial markets keep developing, the way of off-balance-sheet financing weeds through the old to bring forth the new, Accounting information frequently cannot promptly and faithfully responds the real finance condition of a company. Those activities, such as operating leases, sale of receivables with the right of recourse, asset-backed securitization (ABS), joint ventures and investment in affiliates, finance subsidiaries, take-or-pay contracts, throughput arrangements, hedging activities, pensions and other employee benefits, have insufficient expression in financial reports that may let investors neglect the influence on the company behind these activities. This research namely wants to discuss how off-balance-sheet financing activities influence the value of the stockholder equity. Because the types of off-balance-sheet financing activities are many, and the correlative information obtains not easily, this research only chooses available information ¡§off-balance-sheet pensions financing¡¨ as the proxy variable of off-balance-sheet financing. It is found that, the equity book value and abnormal earnings as Ohlson (1995) says, have significant positive influence on stock price. It is also found that preceding-period off-balance-sheet pensions financing can be used to forecast current stock price, this may attribute to that investors only can obtain the preceding -period off-balance-sheet pensions financing, but unable to obtain current pensions information. Among the related theories that affect the funding policy, the findings suggest that: (1) Financial slack theory is tenable. (2) The debt covenant effect theory has not obtained the uniform conclusion. (3) Tax effect theory isn¡¦t supported.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Drexel University, 2010. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-130).

In this study, we investigate how the implementation of IFRS 16 is affecting the financial statements of Swedish publicly listed firms, and what implications there are for financial statement users. These effects are analyzed by looking at transitional effects on total assets, total liabilities and EBITDA and by comparing different sectors, following estimations of sectoral differences in prior studies (e.g. Fülbier et al., 2008; Morales-Díaz & Zamora-Ramírez, 2018a). As a way of approximating the practical implications of IFRS 16, this study is analyzing changes in the key financial ratios: D/E and EV/EBITDA. We find significant median increases in total assets, total liabilities and EBITDA in the full sample, as well as within each sector group. Further, we confirm the existence of sectoral differences, finding the largest median increases in the Consumer Services sector and the smallest in the Financials sector. We also confirm that IFRS 16 bring new implications for financial statement users, since important and commonly used financial ratios are significantly changed: we observe a significant median increase in the D/E ratio and a significant median decrease in the EV/EBITDA multiple.

Off balance sheet financing (OBF) is either not visible or only partially visible in financial reporting for a number of reasons. It has attracted controversy in the light of its employment in a number of major corporate scandals. Previous investigations dominated by short works and consultancy papers have focused mainly on the financial aspects of OBF. This academic cross-country research on the use of OBF in the UK and US capital markets was undertaken to extend the published analyses to include a legal perspective by studying its legal implications for directors, financial advisers, auditors and financial regulators. The study’s legal focus prompted relying primarily on the doctrinal approach, which was in turn completed by the use of a modified case study in order to help address the how and why issues of the research phenomenon. The study found that OBF instruments are double-edge financial instruments with good and bad consequences. When corporations used OBF for liquidity enhancement or to realise financial savings, they result in positive outcomes. In contrast, when used for aggressive window-dressing or in the manipulation of financial reporting for fraudulent ends, OBF mechanisms generated serious legal liabilities for directors, auditors, and financial advisers in terms of compensation suits or even criminal sanctions. Financial regulators were nonetheless found to be less likely to face legal consequences as a result of current judicial attitudes on the tort of public misfeasance. However, the extensive applications of OBF in conjunction with other forms of creative accounting have resulted in various regulatory responses. On a comparative note, litigation and enforcement actions were found to be relatively more extensive in the US because of the higher incidence of large corporate frauds and the work of regulatory champions especially in New York using deferred prosecution agreements.

Submitted by Bruno Santana (brunorafaelsantana@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-03-04T22:06:09Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MPFEBruno Santana final.pdf: 947205 bytes, checksum: 6a2e0e761798cb1d0be840f79837ee82 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzinei Teles Garcia Garcia (suzinei.garcia@fgv.br) on 2013-03-05T13:25:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 MPFEBruno Santana final.pdf: 947205 bytes, checksum: 6a2e0e761798cb1d0be840f79837ee82 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-03-05T13:27:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MPFEBruno Santana final.pdf: 947205 bytes, checksum: 6a2e0e761798cb1d0be840f79837ee82 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-04 / Esta dissertação busca identificar a utilização de operações off-balance e instrumentos híbridos pelas empresas brasileiras. Seu objetivo é, além da utilização, verificar se o índice de transnacionalidade e o rating de crédito influenciam na decisão de utilizar ou não tais operações e instrumentos. Para isso, foram observadas as demonstrações financeiras e ratings das empresas participantes do índice IBrX-100 no período dos últimos três anos (2009, 2010 e 2011). Já para considerar o efeito da utilização das operações e instrumentos em razão do quão internacionalizadas são as empresas, este trabalho utiliza como critério a participação das empresas no ranking das transnacionais brasileiras no mesmo período acima citado. A análise revela que as empresas brasileiras mais internacionalizadas são mais sofisticadas que as menos internacionalizas e consequentemente se utilizam mais de instrumentos híbridos e operações off-balance. Ainda nesta linha, quando se divide as empresas por quartil, se chega ao resultado esperado que quanto mais internacionalizada a empresa, mais ela se utiliza destas operações e instrumentos. Além disso, também conclui que o rating influencia na utilização destes instrumentos e operações; quanto pior, mais a empresa se utiliza. Isso ocorre quando a métrica é o rating nacional, e não foram encontradas fortes evidências em relação ao rating estrangeiro. / This dissertation aims to identify the Brazilian companies’ use of off-balance sheet transactions and hybrid instruments. Its main objective is to verify if the transnationality index and the credit rating have any effects over the decision of the companies to make use or not of the mentioned transactions and instruments. For this purpose, we observe financial statements and credit ratings of the companies included in the IBrX-100 index in the last three years (2009, 2010 e 2011). In order to consider the effects of the utilization of the transactions and instruments by the most internationalized companies, we use as a criteria the participation of the companies in the Brazilian transnational companies ranking in the same period aforementioned. The results show that the more internationalized the more sophisticated is a Brazilian company and, as a consequence, these companies use more hybrid instruments and off-balance sheet transactions than the less internationalized companies. The same conclusion is obtained when the companies are divided by quartiles: the more internationalized the company, the more it uses these transactions and instruments. In addition, the results show that the worst the credit rating of a given company, the more it uses these transactions and instruments.

Doctor Legum - LLD / The ideals of shareholder and creditor protection are affected by legislation pertaining to the validity of a company’s transactions. Until legislative reforms introduced in the twentieth century, a company’s capacity and the ultra vires doctrine traditionally limited the company’s ability to contract. Therefore, the legal framework regulating corporate capacity influences a company’s interactions with outsiders. The goal of the law in this regard should be to facilitate commerce while providing adequate protection to all affected stakeholders. South Africa’s Companies Act 71 of 2008 (the Act) contains several novel provisions regarding a company’s capacity, the desirability of which is questionable. Special purpose vehicles (SPVs) are used for various purposes in commerce, from asset holding in the financial services sector to concluding complex financial functions in corporate finance. For instance, traditional securitisation is a financial engineering technique that makes use of corporate SPVs. Traditional securitisation is a valuable risk management, earnings management, and corporate financing tool. Incorporators of securitisation SPVs often include capacity restrictions in the constitutions of such entities as a means of reducing the likelihood that the SPV will be subject to liquidation proceedings.This thesis analyses the capacity provisions in the Act to determine whether they provide a commercially desirable framework to facilitate the activities of SPVs used in traditional securitisation schemes. The thesis argues that the capacity provisions in the Act in their current form are undesirable because they place third parties at too great a risk in exchange for inconsistent and unreliable shareholder protection. Executory ultra vires contracts concluded by limited capacity companies are at the same time valid and capable of being restrained by a single shareholder, director or prescribed officer of the company. It is argued that the Act’s approach to corporate capacity is detrimental to commercial certainty and creditor protection, and that capacity restrictions under the current framework do not provide any more shareholder protection than ordinary authority limitations would. Consequently, it is argued that the capacity provisions in the Act do not make a positive contribution to the “insolvency-remoteness” of SPVs used in traditional securitisation schemes. It is recommended that the capacity provisions in the Act should be substantially amended, or deleted.