AUDIT COMMITTEE ATTRIBUTES AND FINANCIAL DISTRESS: A CASE OF MALAYSIAN PN17 COMPANIES

Companies that have a good financial health have opportunities to attract the investor to invest into the companies. Audit committee of the company have crucial responsibilities in monitoring the company's operations and internal control or act as an early detector of financial distress. Moreover, company that involved in financial distress tend to commit fraud and could lead to bankruptcy. The aim of this study is to investigate between the attributes of the audit committee (audit committee financial literacy and audit committee meeting) with the financial distress companies. The sample was selected from Bursa Malaysia, listed under Practice Note 17 (PN17), which consists of 18 companies in December 2017. The annual reports and financial statements were analysed and the company's financial health is measured by using Altman Z-Score. The results show that there is no significant relationship between audit committee financial literacy and audit committee meeting with financial distress. Hence, this study found that the attributes of the audit committee did not provide as an early detection of the financial distress. (C) 2020 Published by European Publisher.