Restatements Surge as SPACs Stumble Over Same Accounting Error

When a company admits it made a big accounting error and has to redo past financial statements to fix it, unflattering headlines and stock price slips often follow.

If scores of companies get tripped up over the exact same issue, it’s a different story.

More than 170 of the 200-plus companies that have announced they have to restate past financial statements so far this year are special purpose acquisition companies or companies that went public via a SPAC merger, according to Audit Analytics. The number of accounting mistake admissions in the past month alone is almost double all of ...