Abstract
A recent dramatic rise in the assets managed by passive corporate debt funds has profound implications for firm financing and payout policy. I use fund-specific flows to isolate exogenous increases in firm-level passive debt ownership at a firm. Firms respond to higher levels of passive debt ownership by increasing leverage, consistent with a recapitalization. More passive debt ownership does not lead to risk-shifting, but rather an increase in direct payouts to shareholders. I show that passive debtholders facilitate these effects by reducing aggregate ex-ante and ex-post monitoring. The presence of a bank monitor mitigates the relationship between passive debt ownership and increased payout.
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