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Poretti Cédric

Assistant Professor

Main skills

Assistant Professor

EHL Hospitality Business School
Route de Berne 301, 1000 Lausanne 25, Switzerland, CH

BSc HES-SO in Hôtellerie et professions de l'accueil - EHL Hospitality Business School

Comptabilité de gestion
Comptabilité financière (CO; RPC; IFRS)
Analyse financière

Ongoing

Gender diversity all over the firm: the consequences of financial reporting feminization on financial reporting outcomes

Role: Main Applicant

Financement: HES-SO

Description du projet :

Switzerland has a low but increasing proportion of women in leadership positions (OFS, 2015), and the importance of gender diversity is becoming always more important, especially for large Swiss companies evolving in a global market. In such a context, it is of utmost importance to understand the consequences of having more women in high-skilled positions all over the firm.

Using a unique hand-collected corporate governance database of Swiss traded firms from 2010 to 2017, we aim to study the impact of gender diversity in high-skilled financial positions on financial reporting outcomes. Prior work analyses the impact of gender looking at one financial reporting stakeholder within the firm (executives or audit committee members) or outside the firm (auditors). In all cases, these studies are fragmented as they only study each of the stakeholders individually. In this research proposal, we consider stakeholders individually but also together, that is to say we investigate their interaction(s).

Research team within HES-SO: Poretti Cédric

Durée du projet: 01.01.2020 - 01.07.2021

Montant global du projet: 99'700 CHF

Statut: Ongoing

2021

Asset-light strategies and stock market reactions to COVID-19’s pandemic announcement: the case of hospitality firms

Scientific paper

Poretti Cédric, Heo Cindy

Tourism Economics, 2021

Summary:

This research note investigates the stock market reactions of international hospitality firms to COVID-19’s pandemic announcement by the WHO. In line with the behavioral finance literature, the findings indicate that, in the short term, investors overestimated the risks underlying asset-heavy firms because of information uncertainty. Firms pursuing an asset-light (AL) strategy are associated to significantly less negative cumulative abnormal returns in the four days following the announcement, especially firms following an AL strategy that reduces significantly the operating leverage. However, this difference vanishes after five trading days, meaning that investors revised their expectations. This research note suggests that the cost structure of AL firms matters in reducing information uncertainty, and sheds light on the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis on the hospitality industry. It also provides useful information to board members, financial analysts, and companies’ top managers when evaluating whether and how to pursue an AL strategy, and the potential consequences of it.

2020

What Explains Differing Holding Periods Across Hotel Investments? A Hazard Rate Framework

Scientific paper

Poretti Cédric, Das Prashant

International Journal of Hospitality Management, 2020

Summary:

Predictability of how long the current owners will hold a hotel (i.e. the “holding period”, HP hereafter) has strategic implications for owners, lenders, and consultants. An arbitrarily chosen HP may lead to valuation errors. We explain the variation in HP based on liquidity needs, owner type, acquisition conditions and timing of hotel renovation. Contrary to popular belief, properties owned by listed companies tend to have longer HPs due to lower liquidity constraints. REITs sell heterogeneous hotels sooner to strengthen their focus whereas REOCs keep such assets longer for diversification benefits. Moreover, we document that higher quality hotels tend to have longer HPs, and that capital expenditure employed in renovating an acquired asset prolongs the HP whereas assets renovated before acquisition experience shorter HPs. Finally, we show how our model can be used in practice to predict the median HP based on a given hotel characteristics, and present a method to adjust the DCF discount rate according to the selected holding period.

Impact of Leverage on Financial Information Quality: International Evidence from the Hospitality Industry

Scientific paper

Poretti Cédric, Alain Schatt, Tiphaine Jérôme

Journal of Hospitality Financial Management, 2020

Summary:

Earnings are a key firm-performance yardstick for investors, but are not always reliable as they may be manipulated by managers. In this study, we analyze the relationship between earnings quality and debt levels of firms in the hospitality sector, using a sample of 642 firms from 26 countries for the 2002-2016 period. Results show that hospitality firms with higher financial leverage manage less their earnings. However, this finding holds only for companies in countries with strong investor protection. As such, some interesting implications of the leverage-earnings quality relationship are revealed for investors, lenders, and professionals in the hospitality industry.

The asset-light strategies and the dividend puzzle: International evidence from the hospitality industry

Scientific paper

Poretti Cédric

International Journal of Hospitality Management, 2020 , vol. 91, no 102639

Link to the publication

Summary:

This study investigates the impact of the asset-light strategy on dividend policy using a sample of large international publicly-listed companies (399 firm-year observations) operating in the hotel and restaurant industry over the 2006–2018 period. Taking the perspective of agency theory, we posit that the asset-light strategy in conjunction with significant growth is a context in which high agency conflicts arise. Using Tobit and OLS models, our results indicate that adopting an asset-light strategy only impacts dividend policy for firms with high growth. More interestingly, the positive impact of the asset-light strategy on dividend payouts occurs for firms with substantial growth if institutional ownership is low. In such situations, significant potential agency conflicts (due to high free cash flows) coupled with the lack of monitoring from institutional investors lead firms to use dividends as a monitoring tool. Finally, a change analysis supports our main findings.

Achievements

PEOPLE@HES-SO
Directory and Skills inventory

Poretti Cédric

Assistant Professor

Main skills

Finance et comptabilité

Analyse financière

Gouvernance d'entreprise

Audit

Enseignement supérieur

Assistant Professor

PEOPLE@HES-SO Directory and Skills inventory

Poretti Cédric

Assistant Professor

Main skills

Finance et comptabilité

Analyse financière

Gouvernance d'entreprise

Audit

Enseignement supérieur

Assistant Professor

PEOPLE@HES-SO
Directory and Skills inventory