지주회사 전환 기업의 재무 분석가 이익 예측 특성

This study has a significant political implication. The emergence of holding company is a result of a legislative reform. As such, the Korean government considered the holding company system as a desirable corporate governance over business conglomerates. However, there is no significant empirical research that investigates the holding companies from the accounting standpoint, such as quality of corporate disclosure or information transparency. There was an active debate on the legal issues concerning the corporate governance of holding companies. The system of holding company was criticized for the parent company’s improper exercise of power over the subsidiary corporation to act in the interests of the parent corporation only and not of the subsidiary corporation. We attempt to evaluate effect of holding company system, especially from the aspect of financial information transparency. This research examines the effect of transition to a holding company or its subsidiaries on the characteristics of analyst earnings forecasts. As of the Deregulation Act of 1999 on transition to a holding company structure, a number of holding companies amounts to 79 holdings companies with 892 subsidiaries in 2009. Financial market generally expects positive economic consequences of the adaptation of holding company structure. Yet, there is no empirical evidence that the implementation of a holding company system improves the accounting transparency and a reduction in information asymmetry. Using a sample of holding companies and their subsidiaries that have been listed on Korean Stock Market for both period before and after transition to holding company structure, we examines how and to what extend the transition to holding company structure affects analyst forecast optimism, accuracy and dispersion. We compare the analyst earnings forecasts in the pre-holding company structure with those in the post-holding company structure, using analyst forecasts from I/B/E/S over the period 2002-2011. We provide evidence that analysts are likely to issue optimistic forecasts following the transition to holding company structure. This finding suggests that financial analysts view holding company structure, whether subject companies are parent or subsidiaries, as a positive movement by means of corporate government structure, expecting positive economic consequences. We also find that analyst forecast accuracy increases and forecast dispersion decreases by transitions to holding company structure indicating the alleviating information asymmetry in stock market.. The result is consistent with the notion that accounting transparency and complicated organizational structures increase the difficulty of analytical task of analysts. Overall, these findings imply that the effect of transition to holding company structure on analyst forecast accuracy is conditional on accounting transparency and complexity of organizational structure.