Private Loan Disclosure Covenants and Public Management Guidance

Abstract

Prior research provides little evidence about whether the information demands of private lenders affect the information environment of borrowers’ public shareholders. Using a covenant in loan contracts, lenders can require borrowers to periodically provide projected financial statements. We examine borrowers’ voluntary disclosure of prospective financial information (“management guidance”) to the public after being subject to the disclosure covenant. We find that the disclosure covenant is associated with more frequent management guidance. This relation is attributable to borrowers increasing nontraditional earnings guidance and non-earnings financial guidance. In falsification tests, we find that a covenant requiring borrowers to provide monthly historical financial information is not associated with management guidance and that the prospective financial information disclosure covenant is not associated with voluntary disclosure of nonfinancial information. Our results suggest that a firm’s contractual obligation to provide projected financial information to private lenders increases the quantity and breadth of its voluntary guidance to public shareholders.