Audit Committee Attributes and Financial Performance of Listed Consumer Goods Companies in Nigeria Exchange Group

Abstract

Audit committee is one of the corporate governance engines that play a vital role in safeguarding 
the affairs of organizations. However, Audit committee has received some criticism from the 
failures in corporate governance around the world in the early 1990s and early 2000s resulted in 
the collapse of high-profile companies. This study examines the impact of audit committee 
attributes on financial performance of listed consumer goods companies in the NGX. Explanatory 
research design was used and the population of the study comprised of all the consumer goods 
companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange Group for the period of 2013-2022. Data for the study 
was obtained from the annual reports’ and accounts of all listed consumer goods companies for the period under review. Multiple regression analysis technique was used in analyzing the data. The 
findings reveals that Audit committee gender diversity (ACGND) and Audit committee meetings 
attendance (ACMAT)  has a significant negative impact on financial performance as measured by 
both return on assets (ROA) and Tobin’s Q (TQ) of listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria, 
while Audit committee financial expertise (ACFEX) and Audit committee share ownership has a 
significant positive impact on the financial performance (ROA and TBQ) of listed consumer goods 
companies in Nigeria. The study recommends that the management of listed consumer goods 
companies in Nigeria should keep an optimal number of women in their audit committee as their 
presence has a significant negative impact on their financial performances as reveals by the 
regression results in this study. Secondly, the fact that audit committee financial expertise has a 
significant positive impact on the financial performance (ROA and TBQ) of the sampled firms in 
this study, the management of consumer goods companies in Nigeria should continue to maintain 
number of audit committee members that acquired financial expertise this will go a long way in 
improving their financial performances.