Asian Financial Statement Analysis: Detecting Financial Irregularities

FOREWORD

Asian Financial Statement Analysis is an important work and a welcome addition to the discipline of forensic accounting and detection of accounting anomalies in financial reports. Tan and Robinson's major contribution is to show, through recent actual vignettes, how the tricks are played out in Asian companies. Unlike many companies based in the West with a longer tradition (and rules) concerning strong corporate governance, Tan and Robinson show that investors must be even more vigilant in performing due diligence on Asian companies that unfortunately often engage in non-arm's length transactions.

The book is written clearly for a non-technical audience, providing: (1) user-friendly checklists to be adopted by any securities analyst; (2) lessons to be learned by studying the frauds at Satyam, Sino-Forest, and Olympus, among others; and (3) reviews at the end of each chapter that highlight key lessons learned.

Analysts, auditors, and other stakeholders also benefit by learning lessons from colossal financial reporting failures at companies. Tan and Robinson have provided readers a great service by studying debacles at the often less-studied Asian companies and writing this book, which shares the lessons from such debacles.

Dr. Howard M. Schilit,CEO of Schilit Forensics, LLCAuthor of Financial Shenanigans: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports