Determinants of Cash holding in German Market

Abstract

Cash is usually known as the blood of any business entity that is why it is very important policy matter in the modern corporate financial decision and policy matters. An appropriate level of cash is required within the firm for the good and smooth operations of any sort of business entity. This research report investigates the determinants of cash holding in non-financial firms of Germany across different firm sizes and industries. Furthermore the data set for the period of 2000 to 2010 for the firm size, log of total assets, EBIT, Capital expenditure percentage of sales, working capital, liquidity (current ratio), and leverage has been taken to study the impact of these on level of corporate cash holdings. It is shown that cash holdings must be analysed from a dynamic point of view: A strong empirical support was found for the hypothesis of implicit cash targets. Financial determinants influence the corporate cash holdings, but it's not clear which model, the transaction cost model or the managerial opportunism, thesis supports best the empirical findings. The findings of this study are consistent with the predictions of the trade-off theory, pecking order theory, and agency cost theory. The result gave strong evidence that firm size, working capital, and leverage significantly affect the cash holdings decisions of non-financial firms and that are in conformity with the existing literature on the determinants of corporate cash holdings.