Badih Kazma is the Group Chief Financial officer of multiple insurance and reinsurance firms in the Middle East and Europe. He is based in Bahrain and currently the Chairman of the Board for a private company in Egypt and a board member in Italy. He has 18 years of professional experience in finance, accounting and leadership working in different countries and industries, from USA, UK, Italy, France, Lebanon, Uganda, Comoros Islands, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, and Qatar.
In September 2021, Badih Kazma defended his Executive Doctorate in Business Administration (Executive DBA) on the topic of ‘The Impact of Financial Loss and Distress on Earnings Management Practices’ under the supervision of Professor Marc Valax, MBA & DBA Programme Director and International Relations Academic Coordinator at the University of Cote d’Azur IAE School of Management, France.
Thesis Direction
Pr Marc Valax
Thesis Title
Financial statements manipulation and its effect on company valuation methods
Abstract
In the last two decades and due to political and economic issues, executives became very creative in finding ways and techniques to alter firms’ financial statements. Altering financial statements is what we refer too in accounting as earnings management. Earnings management has become a major concern and a worldwide issue for professionals, academician, regulators, and policymakers. The purpose of the thesis is to examine if executives in Gulf Corporate Council (GCC) listed companies are engaged in earnings management practices. Further to investigate if financial loss, distress, and financial performance has an impact on earnings management practices. This thesis is built on a quantitative analysis using 120 listed companies with 360 observation during the last 3 years dated 2017-2019. All different industries were selected excluding financial firms and institutions along with oil companies as their financial structure is different and cannot be assessed using Modified Jones Model 1995. This study uses Modified Jones (1995) to estimate discretionary accrual DACC, a proxy of earnings management. However, for examining financial loss, distress, and performance and its impact on earnings management practices, we have used pearson correlation analysis, variance inflation factors (VIF) and OLS regression method. Our test results showed that executives in GCC listed firms are engaged in earnings management practices through both positive and negative discretionary accruals. Five of the six GCC countries has proven that executives are practicing negative discretionary (income decreasing) accruals whereas only One has proven to practice positive discretionary accruals (income increasing). Several reasons vary to why executive unethically practice earnings management. Some of these reasons are to avoid paying income taxes, bonuses, and wage increase or to avoid paying dividends or return on investments to keep funds circulating in the firm.