If an enterprise wants to land in the capital market, it needs to "go through five customs and cut six generals", from the sponsor of the securities firm to the certified public accountant, to the lawyer, and finally to the audit Committee. After layers of checks, high-quality products can be listed. Even so, initial public offering (IPO) fraud is still common.
The most typical are scenic mountains and rivers, green land, new land and so on. In addition to the sponsors being questioned, accounting firms that have repeatedly exposed risks in the listing review have also been pushed to the forefront. Although every time a fraudulent company is exposed, it will be severely punished by the CSRC, and accounting firms will be punished without exception, but this has not effectively curbed the endless stream of fraudulent incidents. Who is behind frequent fraud?
Professionally, the auditing ability of accountants is much higher than that of insurance agents of securities firms and investment banks. In the process of auditing, the main responsibility of accounting firms is to check the company's financial situation, such as checking whether there are fraudulent acts such as tax evasion and inflated income.
"In several months of auditing, accounting firms often check and calculate the company's financial status up and down, inside and out, and know the financial status of each audit project like the back of their hands. If the company has any financial fraud, it will be difficult to escape the eyes of the accountant. " The reporter once heard a person in charge of an accounting firm insist on this.
But why is financial fraud still common in IPO market?
First of all, this is related to the professional ethics and accomplishment of accountants themselves. It is not difficult to see from the past fraud incidents that the financial data disclosed by some listed companies are obviously whitewashed, but instead of correcting the company's fraud, accountants use their positions to help hide the company's potential or existing financial crisis.
Secondly, it is related to the existing business model. According to the reporter, listed companies spend money to hire accounting firms to conduct audits, and sometimes they have to compromise with listed companies. After entering the IPO process, the accounting firm will systematically analyze the financial situation of listed companies and provide relevant reports to listed companies. As for whether the problems existing in the company should be corrected, the dominant position is still in the hands of the company to be listed, and the accounting firm can only provide opinions. According to the current system, no matter how the IPO project is listed, whether it is rejected or not will not affect the accounting firm to charge the corresponding audit capital verification fee, which also provides the accounting firm with the conditions to make up for it.
In addition, it is also related to penalties for violations. Although the company itself and intermediaries will be severely punished by the CSRC after each fraud incident is exposed, the punishment is not as good as expected. Under normal circumstances, the punishment of fraud by intermediaries is limited to administrative punishment. As long as the relevant accounting firm is not revoked, informed criticism can continue to make fraud after paying the fine, which makes his fraud behavior repeatedly punished.
However, according to the reporter's understanding, at the previous brokerage training meeting, the regulatory authorities stressed that in the future IPO financial audit, more attention will be paid to the audit quality of the firm, and the feedback will focus on the processes related to important audit nodes, covering the accountability mechanism to the whole process of accounting practice. If there are financial doubts about the audited enterprise, the quality control department of the firm is required to issue a review report on related matters, and another accounting firm is required to conduct a special review for the enterprise with obvious financial anomalies. "Accounting firms that repeatedly refuse to correct or trample on the red line of policies may even revoke their securities and futures business qualifications." A participant once told reporters.
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