SPAC Accounting Fixes Drive Restatements to 15-Year High

Corporate restatements reached a 15-year high in 2021 as hundreds of blank check companies were forced to correct multiple rounds of pervasive accounting errors.

The number of financial statement corrections totaled 1,470 last year, the largest number since 2006 when companies accounted for the dot-com bust and adopted tougher audit requirements meant to curb corporate fraud, according to Audit Analytics, which released its annual report on accounting misstatements Tuesday.

Special purposes acquisition companies, or SPACs, restated past financial statements to account for certain investor incentives as liabilities and to report redeemable shares in ...