Khalid El Ouafa

Since the introduction of IFRS in the European context and various countries worldwide, several studies have examined the impact of this new approach to asset and liability valuation on financial ratios and company values. The present study attempts to determine whether accounting figures prepared in accordance with this new international accounting regime better reflect the market value of companies listed on the Moroccan market compared to those prepared under Moroccan accounting standards. Empirically, the study is based on association studies using the returns model and covers a sample of 27 companies listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange for the period 2015–2020, i.e., 162 observations. The regression results show that accounting figures prepared according to IFRS standards better reflect stock market profitability than those prepared according to local standards, with the explanatory power increasing from 16.76% to 23.64% for the pre-IFRS period compared to the post-IFRS period. This means that by adopting IFRS standards, accounting values tend to be closer to stock market values, thus confirming the hypothesis that IFRS standards deliver a better information content of accounting figures.

This study aims to examine the direct and indirect impact of IFRS adoption on the financial performance of Moroccan companies listed on the Moroccan financial market. The analyses are based on data drawn from the financial statements of 21 Moroccan companies listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange. By measuring financial performance using three stock market measures, namely the Mariss ratio, the Price Earnings Ratio, and the Tobin Q ratio, and using the structural equation method with SPSS AMOS software, the results indicate that before the introduction of the cost of capital variable, IFRS significantly affect financial performance, with an estimated coefficient of 0.395 significant at the 5% threshold. By introducing the cost of capital variable, the results show that the direct and significant relationship between IFRS and performance disappears, recording an estimated coefficient of 0.241 with a non-significant probability level of 0.243. On the other hand, the results show that the estimated coefficients for the indirect effect of IFRS on financial performance are negative, i.e., a coefficient of –0.099 estimating the direct effect of IFRS on the cost of capital and a coefficient of –2.621 estimating the direct effect of the cost of capital on financial performance, significant at the 1% and 5% thresholds, respectively. This confirms the hypothesis that the transition to IFRS indirectly and totally influences financial performance via the cost of capital variable.