<p>Since the year 2005 listed companies are supposed to use international accounting standards when they set up their group accountancy. One thing that has changed with the new standards is the accounting of goodwill and long-lived intangible assets. Earlier companies were supposed to write of their goodwill during the years they had expected the extra profit to arise. According to the new regulation, an impairment test shall be done annually, as well as when there is an indication of decreased value. According to IAS 36 point 134, the company shall provide information in their accountancy about the impairment test.</p><p>The aim of this study is to find out if some companies may be willing to reveal less information in their accountancy, and if there are any factors that affect this. We will investigate if there is any relation between how much the three largest owners in each company hold both in equity- and vote share and how much information that is provided in the accountancy. We will also investigate if there is any relation between the expectations of returns from the market and how much information that is provided. The first hypothesis is: If companies are expected to get a high future cash flow, which implies a high market value in relation to book value of equity, then the company will reveal less information conveying much knowledge about the market to their competitors. The second hypothesis claim that if the three largest owners together holds a large equity- vote share, where small asymmetric information exists, then the company should want to disclose less information in their accountancy.</p><p>In this research we analyse the accountancy of each company listed at the OMX exchange by 31 Dec 2005. To see how much information that is disclosed in the accountancy, we have chosen to analyse how and if the companies accomplish their accounting according to IAS 36 point 134. To be able to compare how much information the companies provided about this, we have created a score structure. Furthermore we have used SPSS to make a regression analysis, which should show if there are any relations. Our results however show that there is no relation between how much information that is given and how large the market value compared to book value of equity is. Neither did we find any relation between how large the three largest owners where and how much information that was provided. Our results differ from earlier studies. One cause for that might be that we only picked three variables, while their studies could have included a lot more variables. Our study only focuses on a small part of the accountancy; if we had analyzed the entire accountancy we might have arrived to a different result. The year 2005 was furthermore the first year that the companies were obliged to follow the standard, which also could have had a certain impact on the result.</p>

Since the year 2005 listed companies are supposed to use international accounting standards when they set up their group accountancy. One thing that has changed with the new standards is the accounting of goodwill and long-lived intangible assets. Earlier companies were supposed to write of their goodwill during the years they had expected the extra profit to arise. According to the new regulation, an impairment test shall be done annually, as well as when there is an indication of decreased value. According to IAS 36 point 134, the company shall provide information in their accountancy about the impairment test. The aim of this study is to find out if some companies may be willing to reveal less information in their accountancy, and if there are any factors that affect this. We will investigate if there is any relation between how much the three largest owners in each company hold both in equity- and vote share and how much information that is provided in the accountancy. We will also investigate if there is any relation between the expectations of returns from the market and how much information that is provided. The first hypothesis is: If companies are expected to get a high future cash flow, which implies a high market value in relation to book value of equity, then the company will reveal less information conveying much knowledge about the market to their competitors. The second hypothesis claim that if the three largest owners together holds a large equity- vote share, where small asymmetric information exists, then the company should want to disclose less information in their accountancy. In this research we analyse the accountancy of each company listed at the OMX exchange by 31 Dec 2005. To see how much information that is disclosed in the accountancy, we have chosen to analyse how and if the companies accomplish their accounting according to IAS 36 point 134. To be able to compare how much information the companies provided about this, we have created a score structure. Furthermore we have used SPSS to make a regression analysis, which should show if there are any relations. Our results however show that there is no relation between how much information that is given and how large the market value compared to book value of equity is. Neither did we find any relation between how large the three largest owners where and how much information that was provided. Our results differ from earlier studies. One cause for that might be that we only picked three variables, while their studies could have included a lot more variables. Our study only focuses on a small part of the accountancy; if we had analyzed the entire accountancy we might have arrived to a different result. The year 2005 was furthermore the first year that the companies were obliged to follow the standard, which also could have had a certain impact on the result.