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COMPARING THE VALUE RELEVANCE OF SELECTED ACCOUNTING INFORMATION IN CONSOLIDATED AND SEPARATE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS: THE CASE OF NIGERIAN LISTED FINANCIAL SERVICE FIRMS

In a company with a group structure, financial information is presented in two folds via consolidated and separate financial statements. The reporting of the similarly classified elements of financial statements arranged side by side in two columns carrying two different figures may be puzzling. Consequently, investors and other financial information users having two different figures available to them need to be guided as to which set(s) of information they need to make predictions and decisions. This study provides evidence about the comparative value relevance of accounting information for consolidated and separate financial statement of listed financial service firms in Nigeria. The study population is the entire listed financial services firms throughout the period of 2014-2018. Accounting information was represented by earnings per share, book value per share, dividend per share, and cash flow per share. These proxies were regressed against the market price per share. Data for accounting information were sourced from the annual reports of sampled firms and market prices from the Nigerian stock exchange factbook. A census sampling was used after a three-point filter was applied to the original population. The results show generally that both consolidated and separate accounting information is value relevant. However, consolidated accounting information is found to be more value relevant than separate accounting information. The study thus recommends the strengthening of firms’ operations, re-evaluation of the dividend policy, and enhanced implementation of IFRS standards to enhance value relevant accounting information that will be useful to the shareholders in making informed decision and taking adequate actions.