Debt Maturity Research Articles

Capital market liberalization and corporate debt maturity structure: evidence from the Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock connect

PurposeThis paper takes the Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect as a quasi-natural experiment and investigates the impact of capital market liberalization on the corporate debt maturity structure. It also aims to provide some policy implications for corporate debt financing and further liberalization of the capital market in China.Design/methodology/approachEmploying the exogenous event of Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect and using the data of Chinese A-share firms from 2010 to 2020, this study constructs a difference-in-differences model to examine the relationship between capital market liberalization and corporate debt maturity structure. To validate the results, this study performed several robustness tests, including the parallel test, the placebo test, the Heckman two-stage regression and the propensity score matching.FindingsThis paper finds that capital market liberalization has significantly increased the proportion of long-term debt of target firms. Further analyses suggest that the impact of capital market liberalization on the debt maturity structure is more pronounced for firms with lower management ownership and non-Big 4 audit. Channel tests show that capital market liberalization improves firms’ information environment and curbs self-interested management behavior.Originality/valueThis research provides empirical evidence for the consequences of capital market liberalization and enriches the literature on the determinants of corporate debt maturity structure. Further this study makes a reference for regulators and financial institutions to improve corporate financing through the governance role of capital market liberalization.

Carbon Assurance, Corporate Capital Structure, and Debt Maturity: Global Evidence

This study used a cross-country sample of firms from 47 nations that participated in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) questionnaire over the years 2011 and 2020, to examine whether the verification of carbon emissions information by an independent third party affects corporate capital structure and debt maturity decisions. Using alternative methods and robustness checks, we explore that carbon assurance importantly shapes both corporate capital structure and debt maturity. In particular, firms that are involved in independent carbon assurance have significantly higher leverage in their capital structure compared to non-assured firms. Further, assured firms have better access to long-term debt compared to non-assured firms. The outcomes of this study are attributed to the notion that the verification of carbon information increases the creditability of a firm's voluntary reporting and reduces its informational asymmetry between corporations and lenders.

Moral hazard and debt maturity

Moral hazard and debt maturity

Institutional Investor Networks Centrality and Firms’ Debt Maturity Mismatch

Institutional Investor Networks Centrality and Firms’ Debt Maturity Mismatch

Debt maturity and climate change exposure: does life cycle moderate?

PurposeIn this study, I explore how climate exposure influences debt maturity and whether the life cycle moderates this relationship.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs robust panel fixed-effects regression models on 32,249 firm-year observations over 2002–2022. The meticulous examination of the relationship between climate exposure and debt maturity and the use of IV regression models to address endogeneity ensure the validity and reliability of the findings. Exploiting an external shock to validate the results further enhances the robustness of the analysis.FindingsThe study reveals that climate change exposure significantly negatively affects debt maturity, a finding that holds for both climate-related opportunities and regulatory risks. While the life cycle impacts debt maturity, it exacerbates the negative effect for firms in the introductory and growth phases. This exacerbation is due to underinvestment problems and a lack of financial flexibility. These findings shed new light on the relationship between climate exposure and debt maturity, providing valuable insights for corporate finance professionals and strategic managers.Practical implicationsThe evidence presented in this study has strategic implications for corporate managers, investors, academia and other stakeholders. The insights on the choice or substitution of debt maturity during certain life cycle phases can provide valuable guidance to management, empowering them to make informed decisions.Originality/valueThe dynamic role of the corporate life cycle in the relationship between capital structure and climate exposure is a novel area of research. This paper significantly contributes to our understanding of the combined relationship of firm life cycle and climate exposure on debt maturity, offering a fresh perspective on an underexplored topic. This study’s unique approach and original findings will pique the interest of academic researchers and corporate finance professionals alike.

Sponsor Reputation and Capital Structure Dynamics in Leveraged Buyouts

We examine whether leveraged buyout (LBO) sponsors’ reputations as borrowers affect the refinancing terms of their portfolio companies. In 510 U.S. LBOs for which we can reconstruct debt financing activity, 67% of financing events occur one quarter before the earliest existing debt maturity. These On Time events generally improve borrowing terms, whereas Early events feature more dividends, leverage, and higher cost. In each case, dividend issuance decreases and cost increases with the proportion of the sponsors’ recent exits that are failures. Effects are absent for matched firms and prior to the LBO and are procyclical; sponsors with recent failures miss opportunities to decrease financing costs in good times. This paper was accepted by Bo Becker, finance. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.00971 .

Bank loan maturity and corporate investment

This study analyzes bank loan maturity and corporate investment linkage by using novel firm-level data covering the universe of all incorporated firms in Türkiye over the last decade. The results of the panel regression model with multi-dimensional fixed effects reveal that loan maturity has a significant positive association with investment, indicating that longer debt maturity fosters corporate investment. The results reveal that the positive linkage between longer debt maturity and investment is more pronounced for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is also the case for young firms and firms with high growth opportunities. Considering the evidence provided in the literature that bank lending conditions, including maturity structure, are highly cyclical and vulnerable to financial conditions and economic policy uncertainties, our findings highlight the importance of reducing the policy uncertainties as well as the importance of policies that make equity financing more attractive and deepen the capital markets.

Subprime Crisis Shockwaves: Impacts On Capital Structure In Non-Financial Corporations

Based upon a dataset spanning about 2,780 non-financial firms in France over the period 2007- 2019, we explore the impact of the subprime crisis on their leverage ratio and capital structure, comparing the experience of the largest listed and unlisted non-financial corporates. Our results highlight that both listed and unlisted corporates tend to reduce their overall indebtedness ratios during the subprime crisis period and its aftermath, generalizing a significant corporate deleveraging for listed and unlisted firms especially during the post-crisis period. In addition, our findings show that listed corporates become more dependable on short- and medium-term credits than the long-term which may increase the exposure of these corporates to credit and liquidity shocks. While our outcomes reveal a clear preference to long-term debt for unlisted firms by expanding their debt maturities, relying on long-term credits and reducing their dependence on short- and medium-term debt which burden these corporates with short-term charges and payments that cannot afford during the crisis and post-crisis periods.

Debt maturity and the marginal value of cash holdings

This study investigates the impact of debt maturity on the marginal value of cash holdings. It posits that short-term debt acts as a crucial governance mechanism by reducing agency conflicts and aligning managerial actions with shareholder interests. Using a sample of U.S. public firms, the results indicate that firms with higher proportions of short-term debt have a greater marginal value of cash, reflecting more efficient resource allocation and reduced managerial opportunism. The necessity for frequent capital market interactions associated with short-term debt mitigates agency conflicts. Additionally, the study explores three potential mechanisms: financial constraints, managerial moral hazard, and information asymmetry.

Trends in corporate financial strategies: Analyzing investment efficiency among listed Indonesian companies

The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of conservatism, debt maturity, and debt covenants on investment efficiency in Indonesian firms, with a focus on the food and staples retail and food and beverage sub-sectors. This study aims to address information asymmetry between agents and principals, using agency theory as the theoretical framework. A quantitative approach is used using secondary data sourced from financial reports available on the IDX website and company websites. This study took a sample of 329 companies using non-probability sampling technique. Data processing using linear regression method. The results show that conservatism significantly improves investment efficiency, while debt maturity and debt covenants do not show a significant effect. This study underscores the importance of conservative financial reporting practices in improving investment efficiency in the Indonesian corporate sector.

Does firm culture influence corporate financing decisions? Evidence from debt maturity choice

This study establishes a relation between corporate culture and debt maturity choice. Specifically, superior corporate culture is associated with the choice of shorter-term debt, supporting the notion that superior culture reduces managerial agency problems resulting in managers being more receptive to external monitoring through the choice of shorter-term debt. The culture subcomponents of integrity, teamwork, and innovation are found to have a meaningful influence on the debt maturity structure choice. The relation between culture and debt maturity is more pronounced in firms with higher managerial stock ownership and those that are financially constrained, but is weakened in firms with a greater CEO sensitivity to stock prices. Additionally, firms with superior culture are shown to have higher long-term credit ratings. These findings contribute at the confluence of corporate culture and debt financing literatures. A battery of robustness tests, including addressing endogeneity concerns, validate the findings.

Effect of ESG performance on stock price crash risk: evidence from China

ABSTRACT This study investigates the impact of ESG performance on stock price crash risk using a dataset of Chinese-listed firms in the period 2015 – 2020. Empirical evidence reveals a negative association between ESG performance and stock price crash risk, particularly under high product market competition conditions. Mechanism analysis suggests that ESG performance reduces stock price crash risk by alleviating maturity mismatch and optimizing debt maturity in investment and financing, but only when market competition is intense. These findings align with the resource dependence theory, indicating that strong ESG performance enhances a firm’s ability to acquire resources and mitigate stock price crash risk in highly competitive environments. Consequently, ESG performance not only augments a firm’s competitive advantage but also serves as a risk reduction tool, enabling investors to construct more sustainable investment portfolios.

Firms’ uncertainty perception and asset–debt maturity mismatch

This study examines a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2012 to 2022 and explores the relationship between a significant increase in firm uncertainty perception and asset–debt maturity mismatch. The findings show that increasing firms’ perceptions of uncertainty can exacerbate asset–debt maturity mismatch. Furthermore, the impact of firm perceptions of uncertainty on asset–debt maturity mismatch is achieved through financial constraints, financing difficulties, and the effects of investment preferences. Specifically, when enterprises perceive increasing uncertainty, they may experience insufficient cash flow, operational difficulties, and increased external risks, forcing enterprises to adopt short- and long-lending behavior to address the issues.

Pension Insurance Contribution and Corporate Maturity Mismatch of Investment and Financing: Evidence from Contribution Rate Reduction in China

ABSTRACT Pension insurance contribution is an important factor affecting corporate financial decision-making. This study investigates the influence of the pension insurance contribution rate reduction policy on the corporate maturity mismatch between investment and financing. We found that the pension contribution reduction policy reduces actual contribution burden of firms, and the average actual contribution rate decreases by 0.26% after the nominal rate is reduced by 1%. However, the policy also significantly aggravates the corporate maturity mismatch of investment and financing, which survives a battery of robustness tests. The positive effect of pension insurance contribution rate reduction on the maturity mismatch of investment and financing is more apparent in private, smaller-scale firms and in firms with higher ownership concentration and lower management incentive levels. The pension contribution reduction policy strengthens long-term investment tendency by reducing the actual contribution burden of companies and shortens debt maturity by increasing principal-agent costs. The results of this study provide a new perspective for understanding the mismatch between corporate investment and financing.

The nexus between local government debt risk, real estate sector, and financial stability

Rising local government debt and downturn in the real estate sector pose significant challenges to China’s economic growth and financial stability. To analyze these challenges, this paper develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model to study the nexus between government debt risk, real estate sector, and financial stability. The findings suggest that an increase in debt risk initiated by a housing demand shock could have a persistent and magnified effect on the financial sector and the macroeconomy. The amplification mechanism originates from risk spillover and debt crowding-out effect, which trigger the negative feedback between the debt and financial risk. Longer debt maturity and the implementation of credit policy could effectively moderate the contractionary effects of this risk interaction on the economy.

Does exploratory trademark strategy affect the cost of debt financing? Evidence from China

In this study, we investigate how exploratory trademark strategy affects the cost of debt financing. Using data from Chinese listed firms between 2005-2021, we find that firms adopting exploratory trademark strategies experience lower cost of debt, highlighting the positive strategic value of trademarks. This effect is especially significant for firms facing higher competitive pressure, greater information asymmetry, and less easily access to external finance. In addition, supplementary analyses reveal that exploratory trademark strategy enhances attention and alleviates financing constraints. These results suggest that information risk and default risk are influential in determining the relationship between exploratory trademark strategy and debt pricing. Moreover, we identify a significant link between this strategy and debt maturity, indicating that firms adopting exploratory trademark strategies tend to have greater long-term debt capacity and less reliance on short-term debt. Our findings underscore the crucial role of trademark management in corporate financing, particularly in reducing firm’ debt financing costs.

Reputation resources and debt maturity structure: Evidence from Chinese university-based listed companies

This study focuses on the relationship between reputation resources and debt maturity structure and finds that enhancing reputation resources can optimize debt maturity structure, in which corporate credit ratings play a mediating role; moreover, there are differences in the impact of reputation resources on debt maturity structure for firms of different natures, in which the impact is more significant for non-state-owned firms. The findings of this study remain valid after the robustness and endogeneity tests.

Debt maturity, governance and investment efficiency: new evidence from emerging market

PurposeThis study investigates the combined influence of corporate governance (CG) and debt maturity (DM) on the investment inefficiency among non-financial 506 NSE-listed firms in India between 2009 and 2022. Additionally, this study also investigates the moderating effect of short-term debt (STD) maturity concerning the relationship between CG and investment inefficiency.Design/methodology/approachUtilizing the residuals extracted from the Biddle et al. (2009) investment model, three different forms of investment inefficiency (investment inefficiency, overinvestment and underinvestment) were measured. To measure the internal governance of firms, a new corporate governance index (CGI) was developed using 65 new governance stipulations, whereas STD was measured as short-term debt divided by total debt. Interaction effects between CG and DM were also estimated. Employing CGI and STD along with firm-specific control variables, many pooled regression models were estimated. Endogeneity issues were addressed through two-stage least squares. Robustness checks were also conducted using the two-step system GMM, alternative measures of dependent and independent variables.FindingsThe findings demonstrate that higher CG and shortened DM increase investment efficiency. This evidence implies that firm-level governance and short-term debt reduce information asymmetry and increase management oversight. Additionally, the evidence suggested that shortened DM and CG complement one another to increase investment efficiency, suggesting companies that utilize STD to a greater (lesser) extent demonstrate a greater (lesser) impact of CG in reducing investment inefficiency.Practical implicationsThis work first advocates the establishment and implementation of robust corporate governance mechanisms to control agency conflicts, moral hazard, adverse selection and limit opportunistic behavior of managers for improving investment efficiency. Second, since interaction effects suggest a complementarity between CG and DM, it is advocated that STDs can be used to achieve optimal investment choices to control moral hazards and adverse selection and discourage suboptimal investment levels.Originality/valueThis work provides new evidence concerning the effects of CG and DM on various forms of corporate investment efficiency (investment inefficiency, overinvestment and underinvestment, using alternate measures) in an emerging economy like India having a unique institutional framework and macroeconomic environment using a newly developed firm-specific CG index for a large sample of companies using recent data.

Debt maturity structure and corporate risk: an empirical study based on pandemic shock in China

We collected data on the duration of outbreaks in Chinese cities from the websites of National, Provincial, and Municipal Healthcare Commissions as our primary source. Our aim is to investigate the impact of debt maturity structure on COVID-19 shocks. We conducted statistical analyses based on different levels of debt maturity and the severity of the shocks. Subsequently, we empirically tested the mitigating effect of debt maturity structure on pandemic shocks using a fixed-effects model. Our findings reveal that pandemic shocks heighten firms’ business risk. However, extending the debt maturity structure significantly alleviates the impact of these shocks. Robust benchmark results were obtained through instrumental tests employing instrumental variables, PSM-DID, and placebo methods. Mechanism tests demonstrate that extending debt maturity helps in mitigating maturity mismatches, reducing debt financing costs, and alleviating financing constraints. Further analysis indicates that the pandemic mitigating effect of debt maturity structure is more pronounced among firms with lower degrees of marketization and governance, particularly among private firms. Our study contributes to the micro-level understanding of the economic repercussions of major pandemic disasters and enriches research on firm risk from the standpoint of capital structure.

Pandemic shock, debt maturity structure and corporate performance

Pandemic shock, debt maturity structure and corporate performance