IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pep/journl/v7y2002i1p37-50.html

Closely Held Firms As Going Concerns

Author

Listed:
  • Michael S. Long

    (Rutgers University)

  • Stephan E. Sefcik

    (University of Washington)

Abstract

This current GAAP determination of a going concern is shortsighted for two important reasons. The most important deals with creditors and other stakeholders involved with the business. Do they enter into contracts with the business or with the individual owner/manager? Currently, they contract with both since, in reality, they make no determination whether a separate firm (entity) exists. The second deals with valuing a business. If the business is not really a separate going concern, it would typically be valued as the sum of its individual assets instead of the present value of its future cash flows. Many times when buying a business, the acquirer is really just buying the assets to start his own business. This is particularly true in most service businesses. The purpose of this paper is to advocate reintroducing a qualification to the going concern audit opinion when an entity separate from its owner/manager does not exist. Criteria for determination are also proposed. Arguably, this will make audited accounting statements more meaningful for closely-held firms. More important, this should produce information useful for potential creditors and outside owners. Traditionally, banks have extended loans to small, closely-held firms with only compiled statements; there was no need to provide audited statements. However, the process of lending is changing from a direct, face-to-face process between borrower and lender to an indirect one where credit scoring systems are used. Audited statements can provide better, higher quality information to lenders extending credit.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael S. Long & Stephan E. Sefcik, 2002. "Closely Held Firms As Going Concerns," Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, vol. 7(1), pages 37-50, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:pep:journl:v:7:y:2002:i:1:p:37-50
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jefsite.org/RePEc/pep/journl/jef-2002-07-1-e-long.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Choi, Sung K. & Jeter, Debra C., 1992. "The effects of qualified audit opinions on earnings response coefficients," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2-3), pages 229-247, August.
    2. Dopuch, Nicholas & Holthausen, Robert W. & Leftwich, Richard W., 1986. "Abnormal stock returns associated with media disclosures of `subject to' qualified audit opinions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 93-117, June.
    3. Duane B. Kennedy & Wayne H. Shaw, 1991. "Evaluating financial distress resolution using prior audit opinions," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(1), pages 97-114, September.
    4. Elliott, Ja, 1982. "Subject To Audit Opinions And Abnormal Security Returns - Outcomes And Ambiguities," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 617-638.
    5. Mitchell A. Petersen & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2002. "Does Distance Still Matter? The Information Revolution in Small Business Lending," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2533-2570, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frank D. Hodge & Roger D. Martin & Jamie H. Pratt, 2006. "Audit Qualifications of Income†Decreasing Accounting Choices," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(2), pages 369-394, June.
    2. Butler, Marty & Leone, Andrew J. & Willenborg, Michael, 2004. "An empirical analysis of auditor reporting and its association with abnormal accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 139-165, June.
    3. Willenborg, Michael & McKeown, J.C.James C., 2000. "Going-concern initial public offerings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 279-313, December.
    4. Fernandez, Ana I. & Gonzalez, Francisco, 2005. "How accounting and auditing systems can counteract risk-shifting of safety-nets in banking: Some international evidence," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 1(4), pages 466-500, October.
    5. Dong, Bei & Robinson, Dahlia & Robinson, Michael, 2015. "The market's response to earnings surprises after first-time going-concern modifications," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 21-32.
    6. Oriol Amat & Oscar Elvira & Petya Platikanova, 2008. "Earnings management and audit adjustments: An empirical study of IBEX 35 constituents," Economics Working Papers 1129, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    7. Sandro Brunelli & Chiara Carlino & Rosella Castellano & Alessandro Giosi, 2021. "Going concern modifications and related disclosures in the Italian stock market: do regulatory improvements help investors in capturing financial distress?," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 25(2), pages 433-473, June.
    8. Martinez-Blasco, Monica & Garcia-Blandon, Josep & Vivas-Crisol, Laura, 2016. "El informe de auditoría con salvedades: ¿una mayor independencia y competencia del auditor aumenta su contenido informativo?," Revista de Contabilidad - Spanish Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 89-101.
    9. Healy, Paul M. & Palepu, Krishna G., 2001. "Information asymmetry, corporate disclosure, and the capital markets: A review of the empirical disclosure literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 405-440, September.
    10. K. Raghunandan, 1993. "Predictive Ability of Audit Qualifications for Loss Contingencies," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(2), pages 612-634, March.
    11. Charles J. P. Chen & Xijia Su & Ronald Zhao, 2000. "An Emerging Market's Reaction to Initial Modified Audit Opinions: Evidence from the Shanghai Stock Exchange," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(3), pages 429-455, September.
    12. Ting Zhang & So Yean Kwack & Yi Si & Gaoliang Tian, 2023. "Non‐GAAP earnings reporting following going‐concern opinions," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(3), pages 3217-3252, September.
    13. David Abad & Juan P. Sánchez-Ballesta & José Yagüe, 2017. "Audit opinions and information asymmetry in the stock market," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(2), pages 565-595, June.
    14. Elsie C. Ameen & Daryl M. Guffey, 1993. "An Investigation Of The Effect Of Qualified Audit Opinions On The Trading Volume And Bid‐Ask Spread Of Over‐The‐Counter Firms," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(1), pages 41-50, September.
    15. Krishnagopal Menon & Kenneth B. Schwartz, 1987. "An empirical investigation of audit qualification decisions in the presence of going concern uncertainties," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(2), pages 302-315, March.
    16. Pei, Donglin & Hamill, Philip A., 2013. "Do modified audit opinions for Shanghai listed firms convey heterogeneous information?," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 1-11.
    17. Bartov, Eli & Gul, Ferdinand A. & Tsui, J.S.L.Judy S. L., 2000. "Discretionary-accruals models and audit qualifications," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 421-452, December.
    18. Habib, Ahsan & Bhuiyan, Md. Borhan Uddin, 2011. "Audit firm industry specialization and the audit report lag," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 32-44.
    19. Arber H. Hoti & Hysen Ismajli & Skender Ahmeti & Arben Dermaku, 2012. "Effects of Audit Opinion on Stock Prices: The case of Croatia and Slovenia," EuroEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 2(31), pages 75-87, May.
    20. Pei-Gi Shu & Tsung-Kang Chen & Wen-Jye Hung, 2015. "Audit duration quality and client credit risk," Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 137-162, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pep:journl:v:7:y:2002:i:1:p:37-50. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Craig Everett (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bapepus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.