Investment Opportunity in Companies and Audit Report Lags: Evidence from Iran

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between investment opportunities of companies and the delay in presenting the audit report. To measure the investment opportunities, company ranking method was used based on three ratio of market value to book value of assets, the ratio of market value to book value of equity and the ratio of gross property, machinery and equipment. To test the research hypotheses, data on 77 companies including 847 firm-year observation was collected from 2003 to 2013 and panel data method was used for estimating multivariate regression model. Results of the statistical tests conducted on the hypotheses showed that companies with more investment opportunities in comparison with other companies had shorter delay in the audit report.