A Research of Information Transparency of Financial Holding Companies in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Tsai, Mei-Li, 蔡美莉
• Other Authors: Su, Yu-Hui, Ph.D.
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/31782621649561000972

碩士 === 東吳大學 === 會計學系 === 91 === In Taiwan, Financial Holding Company Act was enacted in 2001. Fourteen financial holding companies were born following the regulation in 31 May, 2003. A financial holding company, which is comprised of all kinds of financial business, has the characteristics of wealth centralization and risk centralization. To protect the interest of stockholders and strengthen financial supervising mechanism by the government, lifting up information transparency of financial holding companies is helpful for making investment decision and enhancing supervision function. Information transparency is one major element of building investors’ confidence and enterprise image, especially reflecting the execution of corporate governance. The level of information disclosure could be observed at two stages “Mandatory Disclosure” and “Voluntary Disclosure”. Mandatory disclosure is required to disclose relevant information of companies by laws and regulations. Voluntary disclosure is the information provided spontaneously by companies. There are three objects in my research. The first object is to collect and summarize all relevant regulations and laws of mandatory disclosure relating to financial holding companies. At the same time, inspect if financial holding companies are abided by the regulations, and compare with the legislations in US and Japan. The second purpose is to observe if voluntary disclosure has been carried out in the financial holding companies. The third purpose is to analyze the correlation between information transparency and corporate value. The conclusions of my research are as follows, In “Mandatory Disclosure” aspect, to avoid manipulation, the government should supervise the punctuality of information disclosure timing, and audit information accuracy and completeness. Besides, laws and regulations of “Mandatory Disclosure” must be reinforced to be consistent with the supervision requirement. First, the disclosing timing of annual financial report must be earlier than that under current laws and regulations. Secondly, to impose the laws of electing independent directors and supervisors strengthens the function of corporate governance. At last, since the quality valuation system of public information disclosure is still at early stage, the result suggests that the special valuating indicators of financial holding companies should be designed additionally. In “Voluntary Disclosure” aspect, there were five factors to be observed and compared among fourteen financial holding companies. They were the content of website, the periodicity of holding road show, the invitingness of independent directors and supervisors, the committal of credit rating, and the public offering for subsidiaries of the financial holding company. The result from my research shows that the voluntary disclosure behavior of financial holding companies is not active and not enough. At last, Tobin’s Q is using to measure a corporate value for analyzing the relationship between information transparency and corporate value. Supporting by my researching results, the higher is the Tobin’s Q, the better will be in information transparency. Furthermore, a positive correlation between information transparency and corporate value at alpha=0.05 exists from the test result of the non-parametric statistics method. Due to the positive relationship exists between information transparency and corporate value, the enterprises should disclose information more voluntarily to improve the transparency of a company and the interaction with investors. The methods to improve information transparency include disclosing more information on enterprises’ websites, inviting independent directors and supervisions to strengthen corporate governance, holding road shows periodically to announce business operation news, and the others.