UR Professor Awarded Grant to Study Auditor Reporting on Financially Distressed Companies

Marshall Geiger, CSX Chair in Management and Accounting at University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business, was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Audit Research in the Netherlands to review the global academic literature on auditor reporting on financially distressed companies.

Geiger has been looking at the factors that influence how auditors evaluate distressed companies and sometimes offer a GCO, or going concern opinion. The goal of studying these human factors is more accurate audits to better signal when companies are failing.

“Declaring a GCO is a statement by the auditor that a company is at serious risk of going bankrupt in the next 12 months,” said Geiger. “It’s a declaration no company wants.”

He has analyzed the results of 150 studies from the last six years with plans to identify best practices and areas in need of further research.

As part of the grant, he will present his findings to the largest accounting firms in the Netherlands.

###