Bank-firm Relationships Research Articles

Debt signaling and outside investors in early stage firms

By imposing a market like governance and directing entrepreneurs towards professional management, debt, and especially business debt, can serve as a reliable signal for outside equity investors. Such signals of firm accountability can alleviate the stringent information asymmetry at the early stages of the firm, and become stronger for bank business debt, in the presence of personal debt, and in high capital industries. Using the Kauffman Firm Survey, we find evidence consistent with our hypotheses. Outside investors can rely on the governance role of debt and its underpinnings such as the bank-firm relationship. We also corroborate that young firms tend to focus on growth rather than profitability.

Information Asymmetry Reduction in Opaque Contexts: Evidence From Debt and Outside Equity Financing in Early Stage Firms

By imposing a market like governance and directing entrepreneurs towards professional management, debt, and especially business debt, can serve as a reliable signal for outside equity investors. Such signals of firm accountability can alleviate the stringent information asymmetry at the early stages of the firm, and become stronger for bank business debt, in the presence of personal debt, and in high capital industries. Using the Kauffman Firm Survey, we find evidence consistent with our hypotheses. Outside investors can rely on the governance role of debt and its underpinnings such as the bank-firm relationship. We also corroborate that young firms tend to focus on growth rather than profitability.

The Real Effects of Bank Distress: Evidence from Bank Bailouts in Germany

How does bank distress impact their customers' probability of default and trade credit availability? We address this question by looking at a unique sample of German firms from 2000 to 2011. We follow their firm-bank relationships through times of distress and crisis, featuring the different transmission of bank distress shocks into already weakened firm balance sheets. We find that a distressed bank bailout, which is subject to restructuring and deleveraging conditions, leads to a bank-induced increase of firms' probabilities of default. Moreover, bailouts tend to reduce trade credit availability and ultimately firms' sales. We further find that the direction and magnitude of the effects depends on firm quality and the relationship orientation of banks.

The Real Effects of Bank Distress: Evidence from Bank Bailouts in Germany

How does bank distress impact their customers' probability of default and trade credit availability? We address this question by looking at a unique sample of German firms from 2000 to 2011. We follow their firm-bank relationships through times of distress and crisis, featuring the different transmission of bank distress shocks into already weakened firm balance sheets. We find that a distressed bank bailout, which is subject to restructuring and deleveraging conditions, leads to a bank-induced increase of firms' probabilities of default. Moreover, bailouts tend to reduce trade credit availability and ultimately firms' sales. We further find that the direction and magnitude of the effects depends on firm quality and the relationship orientation of banks.

Benign Neglect of Covenant Violations: Blissful Banking or Ignorant Monitoring?

Theoretically, bank's loan monitoring activity hinges critically on its capitalization. To proxy for monitoring intensity, we use changes in borrowers' investment following loan covenant violations, when creditors can intervene in the governance of the fi rm. Exploiting granular bank-fi rm relationships observed in the syndicated loan market, we document substantial heterogeneity in monitoring across banks and through time. Better capitalized banks are more lenient monitors that intervene less with covenant violators. Importantly, this hands-off approach is associated with improved borrowers' performance. Beyond enhancing financial resilience, regulation that requires banks to hold more capital may thus also mitigate the tightening of credit terms when firms experience shocks.

Bank Market Power and Firm Finance: Evidence from Bank and Loan Level Data

We present new measures of market power for the banking industry in Colombia and estimate their effect on the cost of credit for non-financial firms. Our results suggest that bank competition increased during the 2006-2008 period–even as concentration increased–but decreased thereafter. Using a unique combination of loan, firm and bank-level datasets we are also able to show that banks loosing overall market power–measured by the average price-cost margin–decrease interest rates to small firms, but increase rates to firms with which they have the oldest credit relationships. This suggests (i) the existence of market power that is specific to the bank-firm relationship (i.e., informational lock-in and hold-up problems due to switching costs), and (ii) that size may be capturing other firm attributes such as observable risk, scale effects or implicit collateral.

Does business cycle matter in bank-firm relationships to overcome under-over-investment?

Considering that bank does not always perform its functions to overcome financial constraints and to monitor the company’s financial activities, this study aims to examine the role of bank-firm relationships in the effect of internal finance on investment based on the business cycle. The testing stages started with testing the effect of internal finance on investment, testing the role of bank-firm relationships in the effect of internal finance to investment, and testing the role of bank-firm relationships based on the business cycles. Non-financial companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange make the sample of this study, while the data used are the financial statements for the period of 2002 – 2015 sourced from Osiris database. Hypotheses were tested using unbalanced panel regression. The results showed that internal finance has a positive effect on investment. The bank-firm relationships play a significant role in the effect of internal finance on the investment. In the growing companies, bank-firm relationships reduce underinvestment, and in mature companies, bank-firm relationships reduce overinvestment significantly. This study implies that banks run their role in helping to meet the needs of the internal financing. Companies with strong bank-firm relationships reduce the problem of underinvestment and asymmetric information. They also reduce the problem of overinvestment and agency of free cash flow. Banks perform their role in monitoring the financing activities of the mature companies.

The Real Effects of Bank-Firm Relationships

We investigate whether firms’ number of bank relationships affects labor market outcomes. Using 5 million observations on matched credit and labor panel data from Brazil, we estimate IV regressions, employing exogenous variation in bank relationships due to nationwide bank M&A activity. Firms with more bank relationships employ more workers and pay higher wage bills. Credit availability, cost of credit and bank heterogeneity are economic channels behind these results. The firm-level results translate into positive macroeconomic effects in municipalities and states. The evidence is novel and indicates positive effects of multiple bank relationships on labor market outcomes in an emerging economy.

Intangible Assets and the Determinants of a Single Bank Relation of German SMEs

We focus on the determinants and potential benefits of relationship banking. Based on the existing literature and the unique role intangible assets play regarding firms'capital structure, we test two hypotheses using rich data on firm-bank relationships in Germany. We show that firstly, a high share of intangible assets does not worsen the access of firms to debt financing compared to matched firms with a low share of intangible assets. And secondly, firms' share of intangible assets statistically signicantly determines firms' choice of an exclusive and persistent bank relation.

Exports and bank shocks: Evidence from matched firm-bank data

A growing literature aims to understand the structural change and cyclical factors that contributed to the Great Trade Collapse. This paper adds to the conversation by investigating the impact of bank distress on firms’ exports using matched firm-bank data for the UK. We use two novel measures of bank distress: the Basel III net stable funding ratio, as well as the market-based bank credit default swap spreads, which best capture bank default risk, especially during crises. Our detailed database provides the crucial firm-bank relationship information that allows us to directly test for the banking channel effect on the real economy, and to carefully account for various endogeneities and biases in estimation. We also test for the possible contagion of the Sovereign Debt Crisis from the GIIPS economies to the UK. We find that the severe bank distress generated by the recent crises immediately, negatively and significantly affects UK firms’ exports, independent of demand shocks. Not all firms were impacted equally: private firms and firms in industries more dependent on external finance were impacted the most, while publicly owned firms were less affected by their bank’s distress.

The Exchange Rate Disconnect and the Bank Lending Channel: Evidence from Switzerland

In contrast to standard theory, recent empirical evidence shows that currency depreciations are not always expansionary. I show that a bank lending channel of exchange rates can explain this disconnect. I provide causal evidence on the importance of this channel using a large and unanticipated currency appreciation shock from Switzerland. I construct a novel dataset on foreign currency exposure of Swiss banks and bank-firm relationships, and show that the currency appreciation shock enabled banks with net foreign currency liability exposure to increase lending, allowing firms to increase investment. The bank lending channel thus partially offsets the negative effect of currency appreciation on exports, explaining the muted response of aggregate output to the shock. I also construct a new historical database on banks' foreign currency exposure for a sample of 43 countries and provide evidence on the general importance of this channel across historical global currency depreciations.

Are Bank-Firm Relationship and Political Connection Substitutes or Complements? How Does Firms Maximize Credit Availability: The Case of Vietnam

Whether the bank-firm relationship and political connections are the substitutes, or the complements is the well-researched question on an empirical research level on credit availability. This paper studies the influences of the bank-firm relationship and political connection on firm’s access to credit using a hand-collected dataset of Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The results indicate that there is a complementary link between the bank-firm relationship (length of relationship with the main bank and the number of banks) and political connection in terms of maximising firms’ credit availability. This research has relevant policy implications for emerging economies characterised by risks of the local government corruption. The policy-makers should prefer the transaction banking system to the relationship banking system. This matter is the dark side of the bank-firm relationship.

Predictive Strength of Lending Technologies in Funding SMEs

Using a proprietary database of lending decisions (N = 9,898) for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), the paper investigates how banks cope with the adverse selection dilemma. Based on an intertemporal framework, we qualify incorrect and correct lending decisions of banks and investigate the power of lending technologies to predict errors and correct choices. Findings suggest that adverse selection can be better controlled by a durable bank–firm relationship, as well as by an atomistic loan decision process, at the local level. By contrast, a loan decision‐making process based exclusively on hard financial information about SMEs may lead to adverse selection errors.

Threshold Effect of the Number of Bank Relationships on the Tunisian Firm Performance

The aim of this paper is to define the optimal number of bank relations and to investigate its impact on the performance of some Tunisian firms. To achieve these goals, we used a sample of 36 Tunisian listed companies over the period 2008-2015 and we performed the Panel Smooth Transition Regression (PSTR) as econometric approach. Empirical results show that the optimal number of bank relationship for Tunisian listed companies is 3.222. Findings indicate that within this optimal number, bank-firm relationships exert a positive and significant effect on the performance of the Tunisian listed companies. For macroeconomic factors, results show that the Growth rate of Gross domestic Product (GDPG) increases significantly the firm performance; however, the effect of inflation is negative but not significant.

Multi-criteria analysis of decision-making by international commercial banks for providing shipping loans

ABSTRACTThis research investigates the underwriting attitude of international commercial banks in lending shipping loans. By adopting the analytic hierarchical process methodology, the underwriting attitude is captured to understand how bankers would deal with shipping loans in response to the current lengthy recession. We find that bankers focus on the criteria of corporate recourse (CR) in their decision-makings. Of the CR factors, the financial strength of shipowner is the most important factor, followed by the shipowner’s business history and the bank–firm relationship. With the current underwriting attitude, the shipping sector may have limited access to shipping loans of international commercial banks due to low corporate ratings caused by the long recession and the nature of industry itself: volatility, fragmentation, capital intensity, high leverage, etc.

Relational capital in lending relationships: evidence from European family firms

The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of family CEOs’ relational capital and non-family CEOs’ managerial skills in the context of bank relationships for a large sample of small- and medium-sized European firms. The results indicate that family firms appointing family managers are significantly more likely to maintain soft-information-based and longer-lasting lending relationships than family firms managed by professionals, and that these closer bank-firm ties reduce the likelihood of experiencing credit restrictions. Moreover, we find that having professional CEOs does not directly affect the probability of being credit rationed. Hence, family relational capital appears to have a univocal beneficial impact on bank-firm relationships.

Firms’ financial and real responses to credit supply shocks: Evidence from firm-bank relationships in Germany

We investigate the importance of firm-bank relationships for the international transmission of bank distress to the real economy. Using a large panel of matched financial statements of firms of all sizes and their relationship banks in Germany, we find that banks with losses from proprietary trading activities during the 2007/8 financial crisis decreased their lending, and that their firm customers responded by reducing real investment and employment. We document how different types of firms partially offset reduced credit supply by resorting to alternative financing sources.

Credit Spread Determinants? Yes, Loan Officer Seniority Matters!

This paper investigates whether loan officer's level of seniority within the bank explains credit spreads. Based on a unique hand-collected database on loan applications from SMEs to a French cooperative bank between 1996 and 2009, the study suggests that senior loan officers charge higher interest rates than novice officers when -1- the bank-firm relationship is stronger and -2- the business climate is less favorable. The first result supports the idea that seniority of loan officers is a factor that fosters the hold-up problem while the second result shows that senior loan officers integrate the business climate into their pricing strategy to a greater extent than novice officers.

Advances in the corporate finance literature: a survey of recent studies on Korea

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a survey of recent studies on Korean firms’ financial policies and their interactions with financial markets, and suggest directions for future research.Design/methodology/approachThe authors review the finance research on Korean firms and markets, focusing on the articles published in the last 20 years.FindingsThis survey of the recent Korean finance literature covers the research on the capital structure and the distinct financing behaviors of chaebol-affiliated firms and independent firms; the factors affecting the costs of capital and firms’ preferences for capital budgeting methods; raising capital through public and private equity issuance; corporate governance and the market for corporate control; payout policies; and bank-firm relationship. The authors suggest a number of future research directions that may lead to significant contributions to the literature.Originality/valueThis paper provides the first comprehensive review of the post-crisis corporate finance literature in Korea.

Does Lending Relationship Help or Alleviate the Transmission of Liquidity Shocks? Evidence from a Liquidity Crunch in China

We examine China’s June 2013 liquidity crunch as a negative shock to banks and analyze the wealth effects on exchange-listed firms. Our findings suggest that liquidity shocks to financial institutions negatively impact borrower performance, particularly borrowers reporting outstanding loans at the end of 2012. Stock valuations of firms with long-term bank relationships, however, outperform the market and experience smaller subsequent declines in investment than peers lacking solid banking relationships. This effect is the strongest for firms that enjoy good relations with China’s large state-owned banks or foreign banks, and weakest for firms whose connections are solely with local banks. We document a positive correlation between the stock performances of firms and the stock performances of lender banks and the likelihood of lender banks operating as net lenders in the interbank market. These results suggest that banks transmit liquidity shocks to their borrowing firms and that a long-term bank-firm relationship may mitigate the negative effects of a liquidity shock.