Leonard Soffer

Leonard Soffer studies corporate valuation, capital markets, and accounting information. Soffer's publications include Financial Reporting and Analysis (8 ed.) with Lawrence Revsine, Daniel Collins, Bruce Johnson, and Fred Mittelstaedt; Financial Statement Analysis: A Valuation Approach with Robin Soffer; "SFAS No. 123 Disclosures and Discounted Cash Flow Valuation" in Accounting Horizons; "Earnings Preannouncement Strategies" with Ramu Thiagarajan and Beverly Walther in Review of Accounting Studies; "Post-Earnings Announcement Drift and the Dissemination of Predictable Information" with Thomas Lys in Contemporary Accounting Research; and "The Relative Informativeness of Analysts' Stock Recommendations and Earnings Forecast Revisions" with Jennifer Francis in Journal of Accounting Research. He has been quoted in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Crain's Chicago Business, and has been interviewed by WBBM (Channel 2) Chicago.

As a consultant, he worked with numerous companies, including the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, where he developed an interactive computer-based model for pricing industrial chocolate contracts. He was a manager of corporate development at USG Corporation; a senior consultant for corporate development at Northwest Industries, Inc.; a liaison between accounting and information systems groups for the McDonald's Corporation; and a staff auditor at Touche Ross & Co.

He is a member of the American Institute of CPAs, the American Accounting Association, and the Illinois CPA Society, where he has chaired the Accounting Principles Committee.

Soffer earned a bachelor's degree in accountancy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1977, an MBA in finance from Northwestern University in 1981, and a PhD in accounting from the University of California at Berkeley in 1991.

Other Interests

Baseball, running.

Research Activities

Corporate valuation; capital markets and accounting information.

Publications

With Robin Soffer, Financial Statement Analysis: A Valuation Approach, Prentice Hall (2003).

"SFAS No. 123 Disclosures and Discounted Cash Flow Valuation," Accounting Horizons (2000).

With Ramu Thiagarajan and Beverly Walther, "Earnings Preannouncement Strategies," Review of Accounting Studies (2000).

With Thomas Lys, "Post-Earnings Announcement Drift and the Dissemination of Predictable Information," Contemporary Accounting Research (1999).

With Jennifer Francis, "The Relative Informativeness of Analysts' Stock Recommendations and Earnings Forecast Revisions," Journal of Accounting Research (1997).