Determinants Of Highlights Statement Presentation In Singapore

This study examines the determinants of voluntary highlights statement presentation in Singapore from 1992 to 1994. Agency and Political Costs theories are used to formulate hypotheses to explain management motivation for the presentation of highlights statement in their annual report. It is hypothesised that the presentation of highlights statements is positively related to firm size, performance, leverage and industry membership in the Industrial and Commercial, and Finance Sectors. Four explanatory variables are used to test the hypotheses, with 3 proxies for firm size and 2 measures of firm's performance. The results of univariate and multivariate tests substantiate the hypotheses for firm size, performance and industry. However, in the multivariate regression for the pooled sample, the voluntary presentation of highlights statements was found to be negatively related to leverage of the firm.