Non-financial risk disclosure: The case of the UK’s distressed banks

Adelopo, Ismail

Abstract

© 2017 Australasian Accounting Business and Finance Journal and Authors. This study investigates the narratives risk disclosures of the four British financial institutions that were adversely affected during the 2008 banking crisis. This investigation uses content analysis with the aid of the Concordance software to explore the risk disclosure of these companies for period 1998-2008.Risk disclosures in the Business Review sections of the annual reports of the banks were analysed into their historic and forward looking contents, and current firm performance was measured with respect to earnings per share and dividend while future performance was measured by growth in EPS and positive time lag in EPS. Consistent with its predictions, the study found significant negative relationship between extent of historic narrative disclosures and current and future firm performance, and a significant positive relationship between forward looking narrative risk disclosures and both current and future firm performance. Additional analysis shows that optimistic and pessimistic narrative risk disclosures are not significant in explaining current and future firm performance for these firms. Findings from this study are important for users of the financial statements and regulator because they highlight opportunity to detect warning signals for companies at risk of collapse. The study adds to the growing number of empirical investigations that provide alternative approach to understanding business failures.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 11, 2017
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: May 22, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: May 22, 2017
• Journal: Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal
• Print ISSN: 1834-2000
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 23-42
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.14453/aabfj.v11i2.3
• Keywords: risk disclosure, narratives, business failures, content analysis, panel approach, Nothern Rock, Bradford and Bingley, Royal Bank of Scotland, Halifax Bank of Scotland
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/884503
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14453/aabfj.v11i2.3
• Contract Date: May 22, 2017