피인수기업의 감사보수와 인수합병(M&A)의 성과

In M&A, it is important to evaluate the true value through the financial statements of the target company. The information on the audit fee of the target company contains various contents such as audit risk and potential risk of the target company. This study empirically examines the effect of the target company's audit fees on the performance of M&A. Specifically, this study analyzes the effect of audit fees and audit-related fees of the target company on the short-term performance of M&A measured by cumulative abnormal return and annual average return on assets and the long-term performance of M&A measured by three-year average return on assets. The analysis results are as follows. First, as a result of analyzing the relationship between audit fee and various short-term performance, it was found that the audit fee of the target company does not have a significant effect on the short-term performance of M&A. On the other hand, the results of analyzing the relationship between audit fee and long-term M&A performance showed that the audit fee of the target company had a significant positive effect on the long-term performance of M&A. These results can be interpreted as having a positive effect on long-term performance resulting from the synergistic effect of M&A because the high audit fee of the target company increases the favorable interest of investors and reduces the uncertainty of information about the true value of the target company. This study shows that information on audit fees, which reflects the financial incentives of auditors, financial reporting risks, and reliability of financial statements used for valuation, can be used as meaningful information in M&A decision-making.