Analysis of accounting standards: Preferences and effects on Hungarian holding companies

Entities that are members corporate groups prepare their individual financial statements independently of each other, according to their own national laws, but also according to one of the international accounting standards. It is the obligation of parent companies to prepare the consolidated financial statements, which represent the corporate group as one single company. For market operators, it is essential to compare the performance of different business entities, irrespective of different applicable national accounting rules. Users of financial statements need a uniform accounting system that makes the understanding of the content more transparent and clearer thus helping decision-making. In this study, the importance and legal background of consolidation are described, as well as the compassion of Hungarian and international rules on consolidation. Comparison by sectors includes data on sales revenues, data on employment and it also includes whether the choices made on accounting standards and the sectoral differences have an impact on the scores of the ESG-index.