Unregulated Corporate Financial Disclosure and Analysts’ Forecast Properties: The Case of Embedded Value Reporting by Life Insurers

2022 ◽  
pp. 0148558X2110632
Author(s):  
Samir M. El-Gazzar ◽  
Rudolph A. Jacob ◽  
Scott P. McGregor

This paper investigates the association between life insurers’ voluntary disclosure of embedded value (EV), an unregulated market-driven fair value measure, and analyst forecast accuracy and dispersion. EV is an estimate of the present value of future net cash flows from in-force life insurance business. Advocates of this disclosure believe that EV is a better measure of economic performance than traditional GAAP measures. Others argue that corporate management has discretion in estimating and reporting EV. Further, analysts may have access to information that allows the development of possibly more accurate estimation metrics in the absence of EV disclosure. It is then an empirical issue to determine whether EV disclosure has any incremental effect on analysts’ forecast properties. Using a multi-country setting, we find that EV disclosure is positively associated with analysts’ earnings forecast accuracy and negatively related to forecast dispersion. This result is consistent with the alternative hypothesis that disclosure of EV provides a richer information set that enriches analysts’ forecasts beyond their own in-house developed surrogates. As guidance for insurance accounting and disclosure evolves, our findings support the value of continuing to provide EV information to the public.

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samir M. El-Gazzar ◽  
Rudolph A. Jacob ◽  
Scott P. McGregor

SYNOPSIS European life insurers began disclosing embedded value information (EV) over a decade ago due to concerns with traditional local accounting standards. EV is an estimate of the present value of future net cash flows from in-force life insurance business. However, U.S.-based life insurers have yet to adopt this disclosure, although several surveys and empirical studies suggest that EV disclosure provides valuable information in assessing life insurers' performance. This paper examines the incremental valuation effects of EV disclosure in the presence of U.S. GAAP. We utilize a sample of cross-listed life insurers as surrogates to assess the valuation effects of EV disclosures for U.S. life insurers. Our empirical results show a higher association between EV and stock market prices than those of traditional accounting metrics such as earnings or book value. The results also show that EV has incremental explanatory power beyond those of traditional U.S. GAAP accounting measures. Our findings provide vital input to FASB and IASB as they currently engage in a joint project to develop uniform globally acceptable, comparable accounting standards for life insurers.


2015 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinrich R. Schradin

AbstractFocusing the perspective of German life insurance industry, this article starts with a brief description and discussion of the financial impact of the persistently low interest rate environment. Based on an empirical data set of German life insurers, the author illustrates actual limitations to generate sufficient investment income for to meet the given specific financial guarantees. Moreover, the core problem, caused by the use of volatile timingrelated interest rates for to evaluate long-term cash flows, becomes obvious. The currently observed regulatory interventions are trying to overcome the existential consequences of the so-called fair value measurement. In consequence, the author derives four central theses:1. Life insurance in Germany suffers from insufficient capital adequacy.2. Persistent low interest rates threaten the fulfillment of financial guaranty commitments of German life insurers.3. The generally accepted principals of economic evaluation do not satisfy to the traditional business model of German life insurers.4. Under a business perspective, the development of new life insurance products is inevitable.


2018 ◽  
pp. 117-127
Author(s):  
Mykola STETSKO

Introduction. There are cause-effect persistent relationships between the quality of corporate management of an enterprise and its ability to attract investments. Among the wide range of issues related to the definition of "corporate management", the least investigated is the means of redemption rights to purchase shares of new emission. The level of protection of investors’ rights depends directly on its capacity, and hence the investment attractiveness of individual enterprises and the capital market of the country. Purpose of the study is to substantiate the recommendations on the practical implementation of the redemption rights of shareholders to purchase shares of new emission. Methods. In order to create the conditions for the practical implementation of the redemption rights, the model of calculating the domestic fair value of redemption rights is substantiated. This model takes into account the following factors: market share price before additional emission, emission rate, emission and cash flows ratio which will be generated by the company owing to the emission results. It is a model for determining the minimum amount of additional cash flow, which should be generated by a company that carries out an additional share emission in order to preserve the market rate that took place before the increaseof the statutory capital, is offered. Results. The work emphasizes that redemption rights (for the purchase of shares) is a means against blurring the value share of individual shareholders, its devaluation and compensation of owners’ losses. The financial aspects of implementation of redemption rights, in particular, their price, fair value and influential factors are analyzed. If the share emission is low, the "blurring" of the market value of the shares in circulation and losses of shareholders will be high. The task of determining the fair value of redemption rights in the article was solved on the basis of comparing the market value of the company to the increase of the statutory capital and potential market capitalization after the additional share emission. Conclusions. It is shown that as a result of implementation of redemption rights, shareholders do not receive real additional income and increase of their assets. To compensate the shareholders losses related to the additional share emission, the necessity to permit the trade of redemption rights and the tax exemption from the sales revenue of these rights is substantiated.


2003 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 449-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjorn N. Jorgensen ◽  
Michael T. Kirschenheiter

We model managers' equilibrium strategies for voluntarily disclosing information about their firm's risk. We consider a multifirm setting in which the variance of each firm's future cash flow is uncertain. A manager can disclose, at a cost, this variance before offering the firm for sale in a competitive stock market with risk-averse investors. In our partial disclosure equilibrium, managers voluntarily disclose if their firm has a low variance of future cash flows, but withhold the information if their firm has highly variable future cash flows. We establish how the manager's discretionary risk disclosure affects the firm's share price, expected stock returns, and beta, within the framework of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. We show that whereas one manager's discretionary disclosure of his firm's risk does not affect other firms' share prices, it does affect the other firms' betas. Also, we demonstrate that a disclosing firm has lower risk premium and beta ex post than a nondisclosing firm. Finally, we show that ex ante, the expected risk premium and expected beta of each firm are higher under a mandatory risk disclosure regime than in the partial disclosure equilibrium that arises under a voluntary disclosure regime.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 54-69
Author(s):  
Pier Giuseppe Giribone ◽  
◽  
Duccio Martelli ◽  
◽  

An Inflation-Indexed Swap (IIS) is a derivative in which, at every payment date, the counterparties swap an inflation rate with a fixed rate. For the calculation of the Inflation Leg cash flows it is necessary to build a mathematical model suitable for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) projection. For this purpose, quants typically start by using market quotes for the Zero-Coupon swaps in order to derive the future trend of the inflation index, together with a seasonality model for capturing the typical periodical effects. In this study, we propose a forecasting model for inflation seasonality based on a Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) network: a deep learning methodology particularly useful for forecasting purposes. The CPI predictions are conducted using a FinTech paradigm, but in respect of the traditional quantitative finance theory developed in this research field. The paper is structured according to the following sections: the first two parts illustrate the pricing methodologies for the most popular IIS: the Zero Coupon Inflation-Indexed Swap (ZCIIS) and the Year-on-Year Inflation-Indexed Swap (YYIIS); section 3 deals with the traditional standard method for the forecast of CPI values (trend + seasonality), while section 4 describes the LSTM architecture, and section 5 focuses on CPI projections, also called inflation bootstrap. Then section 6 describes a robust check, implementing a traditional SARIMA model in order to improve the interpretation of the LSTM outputs; finally, section 7 concludes with a real market case, where the two methodologies are used for computing the fair-value for a YYIIS and the model risk is quantified.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 301
Author(s):  
A. E. Adegboyegun ◽  
E. Ben-Caleb ◽  
A. O. Ademola ◽  
J. U. Madugba ◽  
D. F. Eluyela

This study examined the impact of fair value accounting on corporate reporting in Nigeria. The primary data used were gathered through a well-structured questionnaire, designed and administered to 120 respondents, who are made up of accountants, auditors, bankers, financial experts and practitioners in Lagos State, Nigeria. We adopted the logistic regression approach in analyzing the research questions. We found that fair value accounting has impact on corporate reporting. The Cox and Snell’s R-Square revealed that 67.1% of the variation in the corporate reporting was explained by the logistic model. We further found a moderate strong relationship between the fair value accounting and corporate reporting. Based on this finding, the study concluded that the used of fair value helped in predicting the earnings and assessment of the amounts, timing and uncertainty of future cash flows in corporate reporting which dependent on its reliability. However, institutional factors played an essential role in enhancing the reliability of discretionary fair value estimates which in return increased the informativeness of accounting information in corporate reporting.


2008 ◽  
Vol 83 (5) ◽  
pp. 1273-1314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yen-Jung Lee

ABSTRACT: This paper examines whether outstanding employee stock options (ESOs), which represent the firm’s contractual obligation to deliver shares upon ESO exercise, affect firms’ credit ratings. I hypothesize that outstanding ESOs play two information roles—(1) suggesting equity infusion, and (2) predicting share repurchases—that help credit-rating agencies evaluate the issuing company’s debt service ability. Consistent with these hypothesized roles, results indicate that the present values of expected cash proceeds and tax benefits from ESO exercise have favorable effects on credit ratings. In contrast, the present value of the expected cost of ESO-related share repurchases has an unfavorable effect on credit ratings and this unfavorable effect is more pronounced for firms with a greater tendency to repurchase shares. The after-tax fair value of outstanding ESOs, which summarizes the effects of the above three ESO-related cash flows, is negatively associated with credit ratings. Taken together, these findings are consistent with credit-rating agencies incorporating the information conveyed by outstanding ESOs regarding potential equity infusion and ESO-related repurchases in their credit risk assessments and assigning lower credit ratings to firms with greater values of outstanding ESOs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas D’Angelo ◽  
Samir El-Gazzar ◽  
Rudolph A. Jacob

Purpose This paper aims to examine the characteristics of firms that voluntary disclose generally accepted accounting principals (GAAP)-compliant statements of income, statement of cash flows (SCF) and balance sheet (BS) concurrently with quarterly earnings releases. Cardinal motivation of the paper stems from the increasing demand over the past decade by professional analysts and the Securities and Exchange Commission for concurrent disclosure of GAAP-compliant financial statements with earnings’ announcements. Design/methodology/approach Using hand-collected archival data, a random sample was identified as disclosing GAAP-compliant SCF and BS with their quarterly earnings releases compared to a control sample identified as non-GAAP-compliant disclosing firms during the 36-month period of 2009-2011, and several hypotheses are tested to determine managements’ incentives to disclose GAAP-compliant versus non-GAAP financials with their earnings releases. Findings The results in this paper suggest that debt financing, corporate governance, operating performance, earnings volatility, industry membership (such as technology and more research and development-intensive) and complexity of operations (number of segments) are significant characteristics of firms electing to concurrently disclose GAAP-compliant SCF and BS with earnings releases. Practical implications The findings discussed in this paper are of special interest to financial reporting policymakers, financial analysts, firm managers and stakeholders and academics. Originality/value The voluntary disclosure literature on quarterly earnings releases is extended by differentiating between GAAP-compliant and non-GAAP-compliant voluntary disclosers. The specific findings of this study may provide valuable input to policymakers as they study prevailing voluntary disclosure rules and practices.


2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Martens ◽  
Thomas Berry

In February 2000, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 7, Using Cash Flow Information and Present Value in Accounting Measurements.  In this document the FASB asserts without proof that a present value computation along its lines will provide a good estimate of the fair value of an asset or liability.  Using numerical examples provided by the FASB, we attempt to construct arguments in support of the FASB’s claim.  We find that such arguments require strong and not at all obvious assumptions about players in hypothetical markets.


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