This paper examines whether earnings management surrounding issue, as reflected in discretionary accruals, explains the long-term underperformance of initial public offerings. For a sample of 112 Greek initial public offerings for the years 1995-2000, we regress buy-and-hold abnormal returns on discretionary accruals and find that discretionary accruals in the year of IPO are negatively correlated with stock return performance in the following three years. This is the first evidence from Greece that conforms with the international evidence. We also document that discretionary current accruals grow before the offering, peak in the offering year, and decline thereafter. This accruals pattern causes net income to grow before, peak in, and decline after the offering year. The post-issue net income decline is especially pronounced for issuers that aggressively manage discretionary current accruals before the issue.
(EN)
University of Ioannina
