초도감사보수 할인이 감사품질에 미치는 영향: 감사인 강제교체기업과 자율교체기업의 차이

최종학 ( Jong-hag Choi ),안성희(교신저자) ( Sung Hee Ahn ),황문호(공동저자) ( Mun Ho Hwang ) 한국회계학회 2016 회계학연구 Vol.41 No.2

Prior studies suggests that both frequent auditor switches and long auditor tenure could impair audit quality, through the impairment of auditor expertise and independence, respectively. Although the regulators abolished the 6-year mandatory rotation policy in 2010, it is still debating among politicians and media that the policy should be re-introduced to increase auditor independence. To resolve these conflicting views, Korean regulators adopted 3-year mandatory auditor retention and 6-year mandatory auditor rotation rules in 2003. Under the rules, after auditor change, clients need to hire the same auditor for at least 3 years, but have to change auditor after 6 years of auditor tenure. In this study, we define ‘mandatory auditor change’ as the change after 6 years of auditor tenure, while ‘voluntary auditor change’ as the change that occurred when auditor tenure is 3, 4, or 5 years. Unlike in the U.S. where the potential reasons for auditor change and circumstances surrounding auditor change are publicly reported through Form 8-K report, in Korea, any information that are potentially related to the reasons for auditor change is not disclosed. However, one can guess that there must be some reasons that clients voluntary change auditors before 6th year of maximum auditor tenure. Especially, clients have strong incentive to change auditors for the opinion shopping purpose. In that case, they are going to hire new auditors who are willing to acquiesce to client pressure (Choi and Chung 2015). In such a case, the low-quality auditors are likely to offer initial audit fee discounts. In contrast, it is less likely that mandatory auditor changes are related to opinion shopping motivations of clients, suggesting that the mandatory changes are less likely to lead to poor audit quality even in the case of low-balling. Thus, in this study, we try to examine the association between initial audit engagement year audit fee discount (i.e., low-balling) and audit quality in the auditor change year for voluntary versus mandatory auditor change clients. Through these analyses, we try to shed some lights into the potential reasons of voluntary auditor changes. We collect 1,100 auditor change observations from year 2006 to 2010 for the empirical analyses. It was the period that both mandatory auditor retention and rotation policy was in effect. We remove the observations that auditor was changed due to auditor assignment by Financial Supervisory Service. We also remove the observations from banking and finance industry and non-December fiscal year-end. Among our samples, 732 observations are those with the mandatory changes (after 6 years of auditor tenure) and the remaining 368 observations are those with voluntary changes. We define the low-balling as the case when actual audit fee is lower than estimated normal fee. Additionally, we use the magnitude of discretionary accruals of client firms, estimated by using Kothari et al.’s (2005) method, to proxy for the audit quality. Empirical results are summarized as follows. First, we find that both audit quality and hour of low-balling auditors is lower for the cases of voluntary auditor change. In general, low audit quality combined with smaller audit hour suggest that auditors exert relatively less audit efforts to lower the audit costs. Specifically, we observe that the poor audit quality occurs when success auditor is non-Big 4. However, in contrast to the case of mandatory rotation, we find that the audit quality is not associated with low-balling. We also find that the magnitude of earnings management was not differ between voluntary auditor change samples and mandatory change samples in the year before the auditor change. Thus, audit quality becomes poorer at the year of auditor change for the voluntary change samples when there exist low-balling. These findings can be interpreted as follows. Client firms opt to change incumbent auditors with shorter than 6-year of tenure (before the maximum length of the tenure) due to some specific reasons. For example, the client may fire incumbent auditor and hire new auditor who is likely to acquiesce to the request of the clients. When there exists low-balling, new auditors are not able to provide high-quality audit service due to the lack of enough resources or independence. However, for the mandatory auditor changes, because the changes are not driven by the clients’ incentives to shop for opinion, there is less possibility that even low-balling leads to impaired independence and thus poor audit quality. These findings have several valuable implications. Most importantly, regulators and practitioners need to aware of the potential audit risks of the clients who voluntary change auditors. Regulators may need to consider the disclosures of the reasons for the auditor changes. Investors also need to be watchful for the such firms.

SK텔레콤의 하이닉스 반도체 인수와 발전: 부채와 재무건전성에 대한 사례

한송이(제1저자) ( Song Yi Han ),최종학(공동저자) ( Jong Hag Choi ),이우종(교신저자) ( Woo Jong Lee ) 한국회계학회 2015 회계저널 Vol.24 No.6

The semiconductor industry is characterized as requiring largely irreversible capital expenditures, resulting in huge fixed costs. Thus, its cost structure is largely fixed regardless of production level, resulting in vulnerable income and cash flows depending on changes in economic conditions. Since its foundation in 1949, Hynix (currently SK Hynix) has experienced significant changes in its ownership structure three times. Hynix began its operation as a construction company but changed its focus to the semiconductor industry in 1983. Hynix went bankrupt in 2000 during the aftermath of the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. While the company suffered greatly from an economic recession after the financial crisis, the company acquired LG Electron in 2000 with politically-motivated intentions,largely backed up by aggressive debt financing. As a result, the company amassed huge debts, finally resulting in the bankruptcy of the company in 2001. After the bankruptcy, several banks unwillingly overtook the control of the firm and resuscitated the firm through restructuring process. The restructuring process was helped by government``s support. The banks exempted a huge amount of loans and adjusted (lowered) interest rates in favor of Hynix. The banks also allowed the company to renew the matured short-term loans amounting 1.87 trillion Korean Won (approximately 1.7 billion US dollars) in 2002 and 2003. In addition, the banks converted 1 trillion-won corporate debts into equity through debt-equity swaps. Following these measures, the financial condition of the firm steadily improved during the mid-2000s. Meanwhile, the banks also made several futile attempts to divest their Hynix investments. However, intense competition in the semiconductor industry and huge capital expenditures required for the firm deterred potential acquirers from jumping in for the deal to purchase the firm. After 11 years`` search for a buyer, SK Telecom, one of the large subsidiary of SK group, a famous conglomerate in Korea, finally agreed to acquire Hynix from the banks in 2011 for about 3.75 trillion Korean Won (about US$3.3 billion). Subsequently, SK renamed the company to SK Hynix. After the acquisition, the operating performance of Hynix improved substantially. Hynix made continuous efforts in retiring short-term debts through a successful equity offerings provided by SK Telecom. As a result, the debt-to-equity ratio of Hynix fell down from 119% to 91% in 2012. The coincidental collapse of a Japanese competitor, Elpida, also helped the company by alleviating industry competition, and increasing demand for semiconductors to remaining electronics manufacturers. Hynix reported the record-breaking profits in 2013. Currently SK Hynix dueled over market share in the semiconductor industry with Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology (formerly Elpida) and secured about 30% of the market. Compared with the status of the company five or ten years ago, it is a remarkable turnaround. This case describes the abovementioned situations and provide several problems that students can solve. We expect that students can learn from this real-life case about the restructuring process of a company and its effect on financial statements. At the same time, students can contemplate the effects of various measures that the banks used to resurrect Hynix``s crumbling financial status. The effects of the acquisition of Hynix by SK Telecom on both the target (i.e., Hynix) and the acquirer (i.e., SK Telecom) can also be of interest. Specifically, students will have a chance to discuss how financial profiles of Hynix and SK Telecom changed as a result of the capital injection from the acquirer. With an emphasis on debt financing and debt restructuring, the case is particularly informative of debt financing issue. Further, students need to search for the various disclosures and infomration contained in annual report. Through these exercises, we expect that students have a real experience to search for financial statements and other information by themselves and interpret the information.