Corporate Split－off and Financial Statement Comparability
Asian Tax Journal Vol. 26 No. 3 (2025), pp. 9-33
Abstract
This study examines whether corporate split－off affects financial statement comparability. In the split－off, a parent company creates a subsidiary by divesting its business unit and retaining 100% of the subsidiary. There appears to be no change in the consolidated financial statements since the parent company directly holds the subsidiary after a split－off. However, considering that the primary purpose of a split－off is to maintain the controlling shareholder’s control, split－offs could affect corporate governance and financial reporting quality. We find that the reporting quality, measured by financial statement comparability, significantly decreases after the split－off. In addition, we observe a decrease in financial statement comparability for firms where corporate governance is relatively strong. The contributions of this study are as follows. First, this study suggests that the split－offs not only affects financial information users, but also changes the quality of financial statements due to changes in corporate governance. Second, this study expands prior research on the effects of split－offs. The results of this study provides empirical evidence that changes in the information environment and financial reporting quality of companies due to the split－off.
Keywords
- split－offs
- comparability
- corporate governance
- reporting quality
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