Tran Ngoc Anh Thu

Financial distress is a matter of concern in the recent period as Vietnam gradually enters global markets. This paper aims to examine the factors of Altman Z-score to detect the financial distress of Vietnamese listed companies. The authors use a sample of 30 delisted companies due to financial problems and 30 listed companies on the Vietnamese stock market from 2015 to 2018. They employ Independence Samples T-test to test the research model. It is found that there are significant differences in the factors of Altman Z-score between the group of listed companies and the group of delisted companies. Further analyses using subsamples of delisted companies show that the factors of Altman Z-score are also statistically different between companies with a low level of financial distress and those with a high level of financial distress. Based on the results, there are some suggestions to assist practitioners and the State Securities Commission in detecting, preventing, and strictly controlling financially distressed businesses. These results also enable users of financial statements to make more rational economic decisions accordingly.

The quality of financial disclosures is of great importance than ever, as Vietnam’s international economic integration has been accelerating recently. This issue is currently particularly worrying for the banking sector in Vietnam, as banks play a vital role in economic development. However, there is a growing concern that managers tend to manipulate financial information using earnings management techniques to meet analyst expectations and to enhance the firm value in the short term. Such behavior can lead to inappropriateness in the decision-making process of financial statement users, as well as impair firm value in the long term. Therefore, this study examines the impact of factors related to financial indicators on earnings management of Vietnamese commercial banks to give more insight into the issue. The data of this study was collected from a sample of 30 Vietnamese commercial banks during a 5-year period from 2015 to 2019. By using the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression method through Eviews 10.0, the findings revealed that financial leverage and loan loss provision have a positive and significant impact on earnings management. Also, bank size and profitability were negatively associated with earnings management. Based on these findings, in the context of Vietnam, the study proposed policy suggestions to improve the quality of accounting information and to assist users of financial statements in recognizing and restricting earnings management in commercial banks.