并购交易的审计师选择与后续鉴证质量

Killing Two Birds with One Stone?Auditor Choice in Merger&Acquisitions and Subsequent Auditor Assurance Quality

在并购交易中,上市公司作为主并方通常倾向于选择年报审计师负责并购标的审计,从而降低并购风险与成本;但实务中仍有一批主并公司的管理层选择非年报审计师负责并购交易的审计。对此“异象”,本文提出,作出后种选择的管理层在主观或客观上制造了并购交易审计师与年报审计师之间的潜在利益竞争,从而可能实现两方面的机会主义收益:其一,公司在并购当年的年报审计中得到更加宽松的待遇;其二,公司在并购交易完成后的并购标的业绩承诺审核中得到更加宽松的待遇。基于2008-2017年的并购审计市场数据,我们发现了与上述假说相一致的证据,通过引入新的市场中介,上市公司达成了两方面的机会主义目的。本文的发现意味着,公司在并购交易中的非常规中介选择行为通过触发外部治理力量之间的利益冲突,显著削弱了外部治理效果。

Listed companies commonly appoint their incumbent annual auditors to audit a target company during a merger&acquisition(M&A).However,some companies choose an alternative auditor to perform the M&A audit.To understand the consequence of this apparently unconventional auditor choice,we argue that the acquiring company introduces competition between the M&A auditor and the annual auditor,which makes the M&A auditor incentivized to compete for the annual audit engagement,whereas the annual auditor is motivated to protect her business from rivalry.This game facilitates corporate management to gain favorable treatment from auditors both in the annual audit and in the performance commitment attestation for post-M&A periods.Using the data from Chinese M&A markets from 2008 to 2017,we find evidence consistent with our hypotheses.Our findings suggest that an audit client is capable of compromising external auditors’monitoring by employing multiple auditors on various assurance services.