The Nexus of Asset Composition with Accounting and Market Performance of Firms in Nigeria

Abstract

This ex-post facto design study examined the link between asset composition and accounting and market performance of insurance, banking and manufacturing firms quoted on Nigeria Stock Exchange using cross sectional secondary data from 2013 to 2017. The asset structure decomposed into plant property and equipment, long term investment, intangible asset and current assets were regressed against accounting measures of return on asset and return on equity on the one hand and market measures of price earnings ratio, earnings yield, Tobin’s Q and market valuation on the other hand. Property plant and equipment, long term investments, intangible asset and current assets all returned a positive and statistically significant relationship with return on assets. Similar result were equally returned by the assets components in relation to return on equity except property, plant and equipment and long-term investment that posted negative and statistically significant result. The result further indicate a positive but not statistically significant relationship of current assets with price earnings ratio contrary to the negative but statistically significant relationship of property, plant and equipment with the same performance measure. Also, long term investment and intangible assets both have a positive and statistically significant relationship with price earnings ratio.   The result also indicate that long term investment and current assets have a positive and statistically significant relationship with earnings yield. Conversely, property plant and equipment and intangible asset posted a negative and statistically significant relationship with earnings yield.  Intangibles and current asset have a positive and statistically significant relationship with market valuation while on the other hand increases in property, plant and equipment and long term investment reduces market valuation and Tobin’s Q in view of their negative but statistically significant relationship. The macroeconomic control variables of inflation and GDP and the microeconomic control variables of leverage and liquidity effectively performed their moderating roles between the dependent and the independent variables by differentially returning both positive and negative relationships. We recommend that IPO firms should invest less in PPE and Long-Term Assets to avoid negative investors pricing while at the same time increasing investment in current assets and developing intangibles. Also, firms with high asset base should increase leverage to enjoy tax advantage. We also recommend that firms with low asset base should avoid increased borrowing to mitigate risk of bankruptcy

Keywords: Earnings Yield, Price Earnings Ratio, Tobin’s Q, Return on Assets, Return on Equity, Gross Domestic Product, Inflation, Leverage

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-22-01

Publication date: November 30^th 2019