Manipulerar företag sina resultat - En studie av förekomsten av Earnings management i samband med nyemission på den svenska marknaden

Sammanfattning: The thesis aims to examine the occurrence of Earnings Management (EM) preceding Seasoned Equity Offerings (SEOs) on the Swedish capital market. EM refers to activities and adjustments carried out by managers. The underlying purpose of these actions is to adjust net income. The procedure is typically done by borrowing income from future periods. Evidence of EM around SEOs has been documented on capital markets around the world, and the effects on firms' post-offering performance are severe. The thesis examines accrual based EM using the modified Jones model. Specifically, discretionary accruals are estimated as a measure of EM. Tests are performed to examine whether discretionary accruals around the timing of the SEO are significantly different from zero. Moreover, the relationship between discretionary accruals and post-offering net income is examined. Lastly, subsets of groups are analyzed to examine whether managers' level of discretion affect the observed level of discretionary accruals. No pattern of accrual based EM is found, and although a negative relationship between the level of discretionary accruals and post-offering net income is evident, the occurrence of EM is not statistically significant. The conclusion of the study is that evidence of EM on the Swedish capital market is absent. In conclusion, limitations of the research method are highlighted and the thesis calls for further research on the subject.