Fair Value of Earnouts: Valuation Uncertainty or Cookie Jar Reserve?

Join us for this research seminar in which Cecilia Hu from the University of Technology Sydney discusses her study into the economic consequences of fair value disclosure of earnouts required by IFRS 3 (2008).

Using a sample of completed acquisitions by Australian firms over 2001–2017, we find evidence of managerial opportunism in earnout accounting.We show that the enactment of IFRS 3 (2008) is associated with a significant increase in public acquirers using earnouts and earnout size.