The impairment of assets reporting in the COVID-19 pandemic – evidence from the Warsaw Stock Exchange

Abstract

Purpose: The main aim of this paper is to verify how frequently issuers from the WSE issue current reports informing about the impairment of assets. The author believes that in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the external premises for a decrease in the value of assets began to occur, i.e., market, economic or legal changes. Methodology/approach: Content analysis of current reports was used. The analysis period was divided into two sub-periods, 2013–2018 and 2020, when it was likely there was an increase in the submission of the abovementioned reports by issuers. The results were verified using the ANOVA test. Findings: Analyzing the issuers' reports in 2020, 77 cases were found where investors were informed about the impairment of assets. The number of current reports about the im-pairment of assets is much greater than in the period 2013–2018 (163 cases). The X2 statistic allowed us to indicate the statistical significance of the difference of the cases recorded in 2020 from the average values of the previous years. Originality/value: This article discusses the issues of assets impairment during the eco-nomic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The increased frequency of reporting write-offs allows us to conclude that entities are afraid of the long-term effects of the pan-demic. Therefore, they decide to revise the recoverable amount of assets in line with the „prudent valuation” principle.

Keywords

• impairment of assets
• write-off
• Covid-19
• stock exchange
• current reports
• finan-cial reporting