O impacto dos ajustes de exercícios anteriores no patrimônio líquido e no ROE de companhias listadas no novo mercado da B3

Abstract

The objective of this study is to identify and analyze the impact of adjustments from previous years on Shareholders' Equity and Return on Equity. For this, the Statements of Changes in Equity and the Explanatory Notes of companies listed on the Novo Mercado of B3 from 2010 to 2019 were researched. The main contribution of the study lies in evaluating changes in the Shareholders' Equity that do not necessarily result from operating performance or financing strategies, but it arises from changes in accounting criteria or errors, which may affect other equity components. To analyze the impacts of the adjustments from previous years on Shareholders' Equity and Return on Equity, the average percentage changes for each were calculated, computing the adjustments from previous years and without considering the adjustments. Subsequently, the Wilcoxon test was applied to verify the statistical significance of such variations. Most of the adjustments from previous years identified refer to changes in accounting policy, notably related to the application of IFRS 9/CPC 48 and IFRS 15/CPC 47, in 2018. This means that companies chose to recognize the effects of adopting these standards in a manner retrospective, with a cumulative effect on the Shareholders' Equity, without the presentation of comparative information (accounting choice). Regarding the average variations between adjusted and unadjusted Shareholders' Equity and Return on Equity (affected and unaffected by the adjustments from previous years, respectively) there is a statistically significant difference, at the level of 5%, for the financial statements of the companies analyzed. In other words, the impact of adjustments from previous years on Shareholders' Equity and Return on Equity is observed, that is, an influence of changes in accounting policies and/or correction of errors in the analysis of these indicators. It is important to emphasize that the adjustments from previous years should not affect the net result of the current year, that is, the effects arising from changes in accounting policies and errors tend to protect present and/or future results to the detriment of past results.