This study examines whether companies realize operational benefits from making “targeted auditor switches” (i.e., engaging a new auditor recently dismissed by a competitor company). While prior work provides evidence consistent with companies perceiving that auditor information spillovers are costly, there is sparse extant evidence as to whether auditors actually do transfer operational information across companies. Using a novel setting, I find that companies that switch to a competitor’s former auditor realize significant subsequent improvements in operating performance and that this association varies predictably with several cross-sectional factors. My findings suggest that operational information can be transferred across companies via external auditors and that companies’ concerns over sharing an auditor with a competitor are based on real information spillover costs. More broadly, my findings suggest that the value of an audit (auditor) is associated with the auditor’s informational capital and extends beyond that which is traditionally considered by capital market participants.