Intangible assets and company’s market valuation : the case study of Algerian listed companies

Abstract EN

The purpose of this study is to explore whether intangible assets that reported in financial statements explain the market valuation of Algerian listed companies and whether they affect the explanatory power of accounting information expressed by the company’s book value.

Our methodology consisted of testing the associations of companies’ market values with their book values and intangible assets, based on Ohlson’s model and depending on Pooled regression.

The study has included all Algerian listed companies during the period of 2005 to 2018, using their financial statements available in the COSOB’s database, and stock prices published in the SGBV’s database.

The results indicate that the book values of Algerian listed companies affect the market values of companies and explain their variability, but the explanatory power is weak.

However, intangible assets are not value relevant, and they do not have any incremental value relevance, they do not explain the variability of market values of Algerian listed companies and they do not affect the explanatory power of accounting information.

Our results suggest a failure of accounting information to explain the market valuation of Algerian listed companies.