Information Voluntary Disclosure and Cost of Debt Case of Iran

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1 International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences 2013 Available online at ISSN X / Vol, 4 (6): Science Explorer Publications Information Voluntary Disclosure and Cost of Debt Case of Iran Iman Dadashi *1, Samira Zarei 2, Behnam Dadashi 3, Zahra ahmadlou 4 1. Department of Accounting, Babol Branch, Islamic Azad University, Babol, Iran 2. Department of Accounting, West Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran 3. Master of Economics 4. Department of auditing, auditing branch of Tehran municipality, Tehran, Iran *Corresponding author Idadashi@gmail.com ABSTRACT: :In this research we examine the relationship between information voluntary disclosure and cost of debt in the companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange from 2001 to For measure the amount of information voluntary disclosure in annual reporting, a list of cases of voluntary disclosure provided with study cases which considered in consideration accounting standards and obligations and laws which are in reporting information. Also the financial expense of the firms has been used as a benchmark of the cost of debt and an index for using the long-term financial resources for financing. The correlation analysis on the 52 listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange during a ten-year period is used in order to test a probable relationship between information voluntary disclosure and Cost of debt. The results from analysis of collected data indicate that there isn't any significant relationship between the amount of information voluntary disclosure and Cost of debt. Keywords:Disclosure Principle, Information voluntary disclosure, Costofdebt. INTRODUCTION Disclosure Principle requires that financial statements of business unit are provided and presented in such a way that be understandable, informative and complete up to possible in terms of financial reporting objectives and provide to make informed decisions to the users of financial statements. Despite all ratiocinations that exist in relation to adoption of greater transparency, companies do not willing to voluntarily disclosure of all information about themselves. Among the reasons for this disinclination are the costs associated with collecting, processing and disclosure of information and also interests related to the lack of information disclosure. Collecting, classifying and disclosing information requires to effort and spending time and financial resources. It is natural that the companies depending on having these three factors disclose information to the extent that the concept of excess of benefits to the cost is preserved. Given that the current financial reporting system mainly provide the actual and historical financial information and less deals economic, political, social, environmental and ethical issues, because these issues cannot be measured in currency size, therefore only obligatory information disclosure can cause to mislead and confuse users of financial reporting and cause to make incorrect economic decisions in them. Therefore Information voluntary disclosure could help investors to better assess the companies and as a result decisionmaking process perform with more knowledge and less ambiguous that its result will be cascading capital to the most productive use from it. Deduce from this that the information voluntary disclosure reduces financing costs, will affect stock market prices of the company and it is effective in company s ability to increase the cash in the capital market (Myburgh, 2001). From a theoretical viewpoint, the full and proper disclosure of financial information to investors and creditors as a compulsory or voluntary will cause to create symmetric information or the same opportunities to access information for them. This is important because the theoretical analyses and empirical evidence indicates that increase asymmetric information or increase inequalities in access to information has direct relationship with reducing the number of creditors and investors, increase financial costs and trade, reducing liquidity power of securities, lessening transaction volume and generally the reduction of social benefits from these trades (belkoei, 2000). Therefore, in this study by investigating the relationship between disclosure quality and financial cost, we seek to test the above theoretical analysis in Tehran Stock Exchange.

2 Research literature How to operate the accounting information disclosure has been paid attention to researchers at least since the 1960s. Researches related to disclosures can be divided into two groups. The first group consists of questionnaire researches in which researchers due to the lack of disclosure indexes in their statistical universe design indexes for ranking disclosures items and perform statistical tests related to the classification of disclosures. Studies by Cerf (1961), Singhvi and Desai (1971) and Buzby (1974) show that users of financial statements are allowed different values for disclosure items. In the second group of studies related to this field, to measure the amount of information that their disclosure is mandatory or voluntary in annual reports, is used from an index. Researches of Cook (1992) and Wallace and et al (1994) are examples of the second group. Chao (1977) investigated the financial reports of the 15 largest corporations in America, Britain, Japan, France, West Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden and showed that there is relationship between the scope and quality of voluntary financial disclosure and efficiency degree of National Stock Market. He stated that there are evidences based on the direct relationship between the voluntary financial disclosures and enter to the international capital markets. In other words, whatever companies are more dependent on international capital, they tend to disclose more information, disclosure that is appropriate in financial markets and hope to achieve capital in them. Sengupta (1998) investigated the relationship between information disclosure quality and cost of debt in the companies. His results indicate a negative relationship between financial costs and information disclosure quality by companies. The researcher said companies that place in higher ratings in terms of information disclosure quality by financial analysts and rating agencies have less effective cost. Researcher argued that accurate and timely disclosure policy by committed company has decreased risk of non-repayment of debt to the lenders and debt buyers that its result is to reduce the cost of debt in the companies. Minton and Schrand (1999) investigated the relationship between changes in operating cash flows and different indexes of external financing costs. The results from studies done by researchers showed a positive relationship between quarter operating cash flows fluctuations with various indexes of external financing costs, including the cost of debt. This is subsidiary of this subject that companies which have more fluctuation cash flows incur more debt costs. They also found that companies with lower operating cash flows have higher changes in cash flows and consequently more cost of debt. The results of investigation by Bushman and et al (2003) show that the proprietary costs, which includes both political and competitive groups, cause to reduce incentive of companies for disclose information. They define information that their disclosure cause to reduce the value of company as proprietary information. They express that transparency of corporate information lead to facilitate confiscating the profits and assets of company by government. In other words, the potential profitability of the company causes to attract the attention of governments and estimate tax of windfall profits and imposition of political costs. They also call costs which cause to miss competitive advantages of companies in effect of disclosure of strategic information for existing and potential competitors as competitive cost. Jiyang (2005) has been studied the impact of cash flow management on the cost of debt and concluded that the companies which realize minimum income have lower cost of debt. Kim and et al (2006) studied the relationship between audit quality, tenure and cost of debt. Using collected data related to the granted loans by U.S. banks during the years 1996 to 2004, they investigate the effect of two features of auditor include quality and tenure on the price of bank loan contracts. Results show that banks demand fewer rates from borrowers who use from the services of big four audit companies. Further analyses showed that higher lending rate demand from the companies which usually change their auditor, and especially more cost of debt demand from the companies which replaced their auditor from four largest companies to the companies apart from these four companies. Also, cost of debt has inverse relationship with auditor tenure and appears that the banks look at auditor tenure as a reducing factor of credit risk. Piot and Missonier (2007) investigated the impact of governance mechanisms include percentage of board unbound managers, institutional investors, compensation committee composed of non- executive and independent audit quality on the costs of debt of companies listed in the French Stock Exchange. Results showed that the quality of governance mechanisms have substantial reduction effect on the costs of debt of studied companies, but no significant relationship between audit quality and the costs associated with financing of companies was not observed. Karjalainen (2008) investigated the relationship between auditor choice and the cost of debt for SMEs. The results from the investigation of data showed that choosing a reputable international audit institution for small and medium companies have economic value. In other words, performing auditing by these institutions lead to reduce information risk of company that its result is cost of debt reduction. It also noted that choosing a qualified auditor to audit has a negative relationship with the cost of debt of companies, but this relationship statistically is not very important. Elyasiani and et al (2010) studied the relationship between institutional ownership stability and the cost of debt. After they control and fix other factors that affect on the dependent variable of the cost of debt and improve internal 1479

3 relations of independent variable of stock institutional ownership stability, they test their research hypothesis and finally they expressed three important results as the results of their research. They expressed that firstly, there is a strong negative relationship between the cost of debt and institutional ownership stability. Secondly, institutional ownership stability than the level of institutional ownership, which is typically used in financial literature, has important role in determining the cost of debt of companies and finally the effect of institutional ownership stability on the cost of debt for large companies and companies that applied more stringent for presentation of asymmetric information, was considerably higher. Lin and et al (2010) studied the effect of corporate ownership structure on their borrowing cost. The results from conducted investigations by researches showed that there is a negative relationship between existence of major shareholders in ownership structure of companies and their cost of debt. In the results from investigation of data they indicated that by increasing the divergence between cash salary and control rights of the ultimate owners and major shareholders, the cost of debt will increase noticeably. They found that violations and other activities of ethical danger taken by the major shareholders facilitate through their excess control rights. These activities increased regulatory costs and banks will face higher credit risk in transactions with these companies and then the cost of borrowing will rise to such borrowers. Aldamen and et al (2010) investigated the relationship between quality of governance mechanisms, risk assessment and the cost of debt with the help of collected data from 205 Australian corporations. Results indicate a positive relationship between the costs of debt and non-repayment risk and information risk. They expressed that increase in the quality of governance mechanisms lead to reduce non-repayment risk and information risk that ultimately led to reduction cost of debt in companies. But for small companies that move to adopt and implement high-levels of governance mechanisms, any reduction was not observed in the cost of debt. Thus, the evidence showed when governance mechanisms perform with respect to the cost-benefit principle, large companies gain greater benefits than small companies at least with regard to the cost of debt reduction. Karjalainen (2011) studied the effect of audit quality, earnings quality and the opinion type of independent auditors on the cost of debt of Finnish companies. Researcher to measure the auditing quality of companies use from three criteria, the audit performed by four large auditing companies, auditing by Chartered Accountants and presence of more than one formal auditor in the structure of auditing institution. The results from investigation of data showed that there is an inverse relationship between interest rate of debt in companies and first and second criteria of audit quality, but significant relationship was not observed between the third criteria of audit quality and borrowing rate. Results showed that there is an inverse relationship between interest rate of debt rates in companies and earnings quality (accruals quality). Also the interest rate of debt for companies with acceptable report is lower than the interest rate of companies with provided report. Bradley and Chen (2011) studied the effect of corporate governance mechanisms on cost of debt of companies. They stated that some of the behaviors that managers adopt to maximize their interest may lead to increase the interest of the creditors and bondholders that its result is reducing the cost of debt in companies. Governance mechanisms examined in this study include limited responsibilities and damage compensation rules considered for the members of the board. Although this mechanism provides great incentives for board members, however in various studies little paid attention. The results from investigation of researchers showed that such rules led that managers avoid from making unsafe decisions and unreliable performance. Therefore managers are secure from potential litigation and cause that they seek to maximize their interests through choosing low-risk strategies. Following low-risk performance of corporate managers, interests of creditors maximize and cost of debt in companies reduces. Thus the results indicate a strong negative relationship between corporate governance and the cost of debt. Also researchers stated companies which consider damage compensation rules and limited responsibilities for the board members have higher credit rating and lower return volatility. Research hypothesis According to the theoretical topics described in the earlier sections, it is expected that there is a significant relationship between the amount of information voluntary disclosure and the cost of debt. Therefore, the only research hypothesis is stated as follows: There is significant relationship between the amount of information voluntary disclosure and the cost of debt." Research variables A. The amount of information voluntary disclosure By Company In the present study is used from non-weight index to calculate the amount of voluntary disclosure. In this study with the help of a list consisted of 36 voluntary disclosure cases, assisted to create index of disclosure cases for each company. Table (1) includes items that their disclosure are not required on the basis of the accounting standard of Iran and in this study are among the voluntary disclosure. To reduce potential 1480

4 bias or distortion in the use of these tools, Cook (1991) suggests that series of financial statements are reviewed in the lump before scoring and then necessary judgments should be performed. Scoring in this research has been conducted using this approach. With this practice, the amount of voluntary disclosure in annual reports becomes quantitative and it is equal to the proportion of information voluntary items that disclose in the financial reporting of the companies. The amount of voluntary disclosure in annual reports is calculated from the following equation: j j Qf = m j = 1 n H d = Total number j of items disclosed by company (All items which get one score) j = 1 d j H = Total number of disclosable items by company (All items which get one or zero value) After calculating annual index of disclosure for each of the years 2001 to 2010, the average of these indexes is used as a final index of disclosure to perform statistical tests. Table 1. Items which their disclosure on the basis of the accounting standard were not necessary and are considered among voluntary disclosure. Rank Items Description Rank Items Description 1 History of company 19 state the goals of company 2 Names of board members 20 performed actions to achieve goals 3 being bound or unbound of board members 21 time frame to achieve the goals 4 The names of top executives 22 description of major products and services 5 Names of major shareholders 23 major markets (major clients) 6 The number of employees of company 24 aged remaining of debtors 7 description of changes in sales revenue 25 information about different types of products 8 description of changes in the price of sold information about events affecting on the 26 inventory as a percentage of sale results of future years 9 description of changes in the gross profit 27 information about future development projects 10 description of changes in the General and Administrative Expenses 28 sales trend in the recent years 11 Description of changes in the financial costs 29 operating profit trend in the recent years 12 Description of changes in the interest income 30 capital expenditure trend in the recent years 13 discussion about share changes from sale market and its trend 31 profitability ratios 14 Company's strategies and its impact 32 activity ratios 15 proportion from sale market 33 Liquidity ratios 16 predicted profits 34 sold units for main products 17 sales prediction 35 sale price of per unit of main products 18 cash flow prediction 36 list of added value Cost of debt of company cost of debt is part of capital cost which is paid from funds that provided out of company. In fact this cost includes interest which is paid for bearing interest debts such as short-term and long-term loans. In the case of companies that have issued bonds, the bonds cost also is added to it. Given the number of loans received by the companies, an average as the interest expense and their debt can be considered. In this study, the average of annual financial costs of companies during the years 2001 to 2010 as the benchmark of cost of debt and an index for the use of long-term financial resources to financing is used. Research data analysis The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between information voluntary disclosure and the cost of debt during the period in the listed companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange. After identifying the sample, we pay to collect needed data to test the hypothesis. Table (2) contains descriptive statistics information about the variables of cost of debt and voluntary disclosure of companies. Table 2. Descriptive statistics information of research variables Variables N Mean Std. Deviation Variance Statistic Statistic Std. Error Statistic Statistic Cost of debt Valid N (list wise) 52 Voluntary disclosure Valid N (list wise)

5 Final results of research hypothesis testing are reflected in tables 3 and 4. Output from collected data includes the Pearson correlation coefficient, two-tailed test and the data number. Based on this output, since at the 95% confidence level, significance level obtained for the Pearson correlation test (0/266) is more than error level (0/05), therefore statistical hypothesis H0 is confirmed and therefore can be stated that there is no significant relationship between the amount of information voluntary disclosure in financial reporting and the cost of debt. Table 3. Pearson correlation test Variables voluntary disclosure cost of debt Voluntary disclosure Cost of debt Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed).266 N Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed).266 N Table 4. Test result of research hypothesis Description Result - Amount Number of sample member 52 confidence level 95% correlation coefficient amount 0/157 Error level 5% Significance level 0/266 confirmed hypothesis H0 Result of test no relationship between variables Figure (1) shows the scatter plot for two variables of cost of debt and voluntary disclosure. As stated in the statistical test results and can be seen in this plot, there is no significant relationship between the research variables voluntary disclosure cost of debt Figure 1. Scatter plot of research variables CONCLUSION This study is based on this idea that creditors and banks considered disclosure policies of company when estimate the risk of non-repayment of debt. In support of this idea can be documented to the statement of Standard & Poor's Institute. This International prestigious Institute states that it considers the quality of disclosed accounting information as a major factor in determining the credit rating of companies issuing business debt. So the companies which allocate more score to them in terms of disclosure quality will have higher credit rating and less risk. According to theoretical discussions of accounting knowledge can be 1482

6 expected that information voluntary disclosure is useful for investors, creditors and other users of accounting information. This study investigated the relationship between information voluntary disclosure and cost of debt in listed companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange. To test the possible relationship between dependent and independent variables is used the correlation analysis in Pearson method. Results from the investigation of collected data, related to the 52-stock companies during the years 2001 to 2010, have been implicated any relationship between the amount of information voluntary disclosure and the cost of debt. The results of present study are contrary to theoretical discussions expressed in the accounting literature and also Sengupta findings (1998) in America exchange and Aldamen and et al (2010) in the Australian Stock Exchange. According to the results of present research, which refers to the difference between theory and practice, can be stated the following argument to justify the lack of effect of disclosed information amount in companies on their cost of debt. Important subject to creditor about conferment of loan and credit is recipient s ability to repayment of principal and interest of receivable loans and credits. In western countries like the U.S., creditor to evaluate the repayment ability of the principal and interest of loan rely to the financial statements of companies. They pay to evaluate the credit conferment risk to a company using these statements. Risk in their opinion includes the possibility measure of unilateral transfer of their wealth to other interested parties of company. With increasing the possibility of wealth transfer from creditor to shareholder, conflict of interest risk between them increases. Therefore reasonably it is expected that companies which there is more conflicts of interest between shareholders and creditors, encounter greater restrictions from creditors to finance. In practice, these companies are forced to finance with higher rates. On the other hand, it is assumed that performing accurate and timely information disclosure policies by Undertaker Company decrease risk of non-repayment of debt to the lenders and debt buyers; that its result is to reduce the cost of debt in company. But based on the results of this study, this prediction in business environment of Iran is not true. Absence of an active market for debt securities may be one reason. To issue bonds by companies consider requirements. However, business units due to legal restrictions that exist in the determination of interest rate of the bonds have not done much welcome from issuance of these securities. As a result Iranian companies continued to rely on the funds received from banks and credit and financial institutions. Much of the banks in country are governmental and their credit conferment policies are determined by the government. These banks see financial statements and profitability position of company as criteria to loan conferment. Thus it can be predicted that in practice, conferment of credits to business units has not any relationship to the amount of conflict of interests of creditors with shareholders. Since the interest rate related to the bank loans is generally specific percentages which is applied as predetermined and fixed without regard to the financial reports (including the amount of voluntary disclosure) of the company which request loan, so the lack of effect of disclosed information amount on cost of debt in companies can be known reasonable. 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