Real earnings management through syndicated lending

Abstract

I examine whether banks manage syndicated loan originations to achieve financial reporting goals. Using a large sample of loans and relying on a within-quarter analysis, I find that publicly traded banks that narrowly beat earnings benchmarks initiate more loans in the last month of the fiscal quarter to book origination fees. Relative to otherwise similar loans, these loans are associated with front-end fees that are 4.2% higher but have credit spreads that are 3.3% lower, resulting in a net price discount of 2.5%. The findings are stronger for bigger banks, for lenders that are funding-constrained, and for banks whose managers’ pay is more sensitive to stock performance. Further, these loans underperform in terms of future defaults and rating downgrades. Finally, I find that while the hypothesized earnings management helps banks raise capital in the short term, it is costly in the longer term, as it is associated with lower capital and profitability ratios. Overall, I provide model-free evidence on banks’ real earnings management and the costs of this behavior.