Relatórios da administração das companhias brasileiras de capital aberto: uma análise qualitativa

Abstract

The Management Reports (MD&A), demanded by Brazilian law 6.404/76, have an important role in the investors’ oriented disclosure system. This study aims to investigate the possible relationship of the optimism degree presented in those reports and the Brazilian public companies’ performance. The analysis of the MD&A’s contents of 448 Brazilian companies, in the year of 2002, has demonstrated that more than half of the information has an optimistic bias and in their majority it refers to the performance and administrative reforms. Dividends, indebtedness and loans policy are the less present information. The degree of optimism of the reports relates to the current performance of the company expressed by its size, return of the assets and liquid margin. However, the degree of optimism was inversely proportional to the level of income and directly proportional to the level of indebtedness. Thus, companies with lower incomes have presented more optimistic reports.