并购业绩补偿承诺会诱导盈余管理吗?

Does performance compensation commitment in M&A induce earnings management?

在我国并购浪潮中业绩补偿承诺日渐盛行。通过手工匹配2012年~2017年中小企业板和创业板的并购事件与业绩补偿承诺,实证检验并购中签订业绩补偿承诺是否会诱导上市公司的盈余管理行为,研究发现,签订了业绩补偿承诺的公司更倾向于提高并购后的盈余管理水平.同时,公司盈余管理行为与承诺业绩的完成情况有关.具体表现为:当业绩承诺第一年未完成时,上市公司在下一年有继续进行向上盈余管理的动机;当业绩承诺在前两年或前三年均未完成时,公司则不再提高下一年的盈余管理水平.此外,业绩承诺第1年或业绩承诺第2年发生“精准达标”的公司仍然会在下一年提高盈余管理水平.进一步研究发现,借壳上市的公司、并购后1年内进行了股权质押的上市公司和发生关联并购的上市公司在使用业绩补偿承诺后更倾向于提高盈余管理.当业绩承诺到期后,上市公司发生“业绩变脸”的风险大大增加.将并购业绩补偿承诺作为盈余管理的新动因,丰富了业绩补偿承诺诱发机会主义行为的研究,为政策制定者提供了决策参考.

By manually matching the performance compensation commitments and M&A events from 2012 to 2017,this paper finds that companies that use performance compensation commitments are more inclined to improve earnings management after M&A.At the same time,the company's earnings management behavior is related to the completion of the promised performance:when the performance commitment fails to meet the promised performance in the first year,the listed company has the motive to continue earnings management in the next year;when the performance commitment fails to meet the promised performance in the first two years or the three years of performance commitment,the listed company no longer raises the level of earnings management for the next year.In addition,the company that has achieved“precision compliance”in the first or second year of performance commitment will still carry out upward earnings management in the next year.Through further research,this paper finds that companies which have acquired M&A for the purpose of backdoor listing,companies that have pledged their shares within one year after M&A and related party M&As are more inclined to use performance compensation commitments to improve earnings management.Finally,when the performance commitment expires,the risk of“performance change”in listed companies is greatly increased.The research in this paper regards the performance compensation promise as the new motivation of earnings management,which not only enriches the literature on the opportunistic behavior of performance compensation commitment,but also provides relevant reference for relevant policy makers.