Annual late filings and family firms

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between late 10-K filings and the family ownership structure. We examine whether family ownership is more or less likely to impact annual late filings practices. We rely on prior research that has investigated the reasons behind late 10-K filing and various theories associated with family firms to investigate a variety of controls for late 10-K filing. Our sample consists of 5842 late and timely annual filings from 2004 through 2010 for companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and the National Association of Security Dealers Automated Quotations system (NASDAQ). We find that family firms are not more- less likely to have late 10-K filings when compared to non-family firms. We also find that small and younger firms are more likely to file late and firms having large audit engagements are less likely to file their 10-K reports late. Furthermore, we test our model for the family firm subsample and find leverage to be a strong predictor for a late 10-K filing for family firms.