CPC 29: An Analysis of the Requirements for Disclosure between Private and Public Firms of Agribusiness Sector

Abstract

Based on the theories of agency and stakeholder is expected that those responsible for preparing the financial statements are committed to the disclosure of relevant information to users. The purpose of this work is to make an analysis from the information provided by public and private companies of the agribusiness sector, focusing on disclosure requirements of the CPC 29. However, the differential of this work is the analysis separately of public and private companies. This is a descriptive and qualitative research, based on analysis of financial statements of 2010. For this, a check list based on CPC 29 was applied, allowing the comparison between public and private companies through of the Mann-Whitney test. The data analyzed allow concluding that most of the sample opted to use fair value as the measurement basis, but did not disclose the assumptions used in the method adopted. This situation undermines the comparative analysis of financial statements and decreases its relevance to users, besides allowing practices of earnings management. The disclosure of the types of biological assets and the reconciliation of the changes in the carrying amount of these were made for much of the sample companies. However, there was a low disclosure of risk and control restrictions for the composition of the historical cost of biological assets. These evidences show that companies, public or private, complied partially the requirements of CPC 29. Moreover, in the separate analysis, the statistical test shows no difference in terms of disclosure between the two groups. These results should be analyzed with caution considering the limitations of this research and the adaptation period for which companies face in the first adoption of CPC 29.

Keywords

• Biological assets
• CPC 29
• Agribusiness
• Disclosure.