Accounting Choices: The Brazilian Case Of Real Estate Investment

Abstract

The objective in this study is to show that the business model of publicly traded real estate management companies in the Brazilian market explains their accounting choices to measure the investment properties. Therefore, the five main Brazilian investment property managers were studied, based on a method that triangulated documentary research, semistructured interviews and consistency analysis. The results of the analysis of the secondary data from the documentary research of the two main Brazilian companies in the real estate exploitation sector (one of which chose the fair value and the other the cost), together with the results of the interviews with the companies’ main internal and external agents direct or indirectly involved in the measuring choices of investment properties, indicated that the companies’ distinguished business model explains their distinct accounting choices to measure the investment properties. To enhance the consistency of these findings, next, the business models of the three consecutive largest Brazilian investment property managers were analyzed (two of which chose the fair value and one the cost), confronting them with their accounting choices; consistency was observed between the business models and the accounting choices, in accordance with earlier results. Although generalization of the results is not possible due to the small number of companies studied and the specific sector, evidence indicates that an integrated set of factors, which are considered in isolation in the literature, can explain the accounting choices. Several mutually interacting factors that explain the accounting choices, to the detriment of isolated factors, can contribute to expand the knowledge on this theme.