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In a company with a group structure, financial information is presented in two folds via consolidated and separate financial statements. The reporting of the similarly classified elements of financial statements arranged side by side in two columns carrying two different figures may be puzzling. Consequently, investors and other financial information users having two different figures available to them need to be guided as to which set(s) of information they need to make predictions and decisions. This study provides evidence about the comparative value relevance of accounting information for consolidated and separate financial statement of listed financial service firms in Nigeria. The study population is the entire listed financial services firms throughout the period of 2014-2018. Accounting information was represented by earnings per share, book value per share, dividend per share, and cash flow per share. These proxies were regressed against the market price per share. Data for accounting information were sourced from the annual reports of sampled firms and market prices from the Nigerian stock exchange factbook. A census sampling was used after a three-point filter was applied to the original population. The results show generally that both consolidated and separate accounting information is value relevant. However, consolidated accounting information is found to be more value relevant than separate accounting information. The study thus recommends the strengthening of firms’ operations, re-evaluation of the dividend policy, and enhanced implementation of IFRS standards to enhance value relevant accounting information that will be useful to the shareholders in making informed decision and taking adequate actions.

Over a 5-year period from 2016 to 2020, this paper compares the value relevance of accounting numbers of banks and insurance firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange market. The analysis used data from annual accounts of these companies and the Nigerian Stock Exchange facts sheet to apply Ohlson's (1995) valuation model to test the comparative value validity of accounting numbers of these two sub-sectors in the financial service industry. The findings of the empirical analyses revealed the importance of accounting information's value relevance to listed group financial service firms in Nigeria. Furthermore, the accounting numbers of banks have been found to be more important in terms of information quality than the accounting numbers of insurance firms. As a result, the paper proposes that firms' operations be sustained in order to improve profits, performance, and shareholder wealth.

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