• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.55-69
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• 2014

We try to test the pecking order theory of Korean fisheries firm's capital structure using debt capacity. At first, we estimate the debt capacity as the probability of assigning corporate bond rating from credit-rating agencies. We use logit regression model to estimate this probability as a proxy of debt capacity. The major results of this study are as follows. Firstly, we can confirm the fisheries firm's financing behaviour which issues new debt securities for financial deficit. Empirical test of SSM model indicates that the higher probability of assigning corporate bond rating, the higher the coefficient of financial deficit. Especially, high probability group follows this result exactly. Therefore, the pecking order theory of fisheries firm's capital structure applies well for high probability group which means high debt capacity. It also applies for medium and low probability group, but their significances are not good. Secondly, the most of fisheries firms in high probability group issue new debt securities for their financial deficit. Low probability group's fisheries firms also issue new debt securities for their financial deficit within the limit of their debt capacity, but beyond debt capacity they use equity financing for financial deficit. Therefore, the pecking order theory on debt capacity come into existence well in high probability group.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.11
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• pp.699-705
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• 2020

This study aims to examine the antecedent factors of debt policy on the influence of firm growth on firm value. There was a total of 19 companies involved accounting for 95 observational data from a population of 169 companies listed on the Kompas 100 Index of the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2018. The data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, classic assumption tests, multiple regression, and hypothesis testing. The results prove that the firm growth, proxied by asset growth or sales growth, did not have a significant influence on the debt policy. Further, there was no significant influence of debt policy on firm value when using debt ratio and also dividend policy as a control variable. In contrast, there was a positive and significant influence on the firm value when using debt to equity ratio proxy, both with or without using the control variable. Therefore, the debt policy was not proven as an antecedent on the influence of firm growth on firm value. This finding implies that there was a tendency for the company management to adopt the policy, which would increase the debt ratio to increase the investors' confidence in the stock market and investors neglect the company's dividend policy.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.23-31
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• 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find out the impact of financial leverage on firm's profitability in the listed textile sector of Bangladesh. Research design, data and methodology: A sample of 22 DSE listed textile firms has been used to conduct the study. In this study, firm profitability is measured by Return on Equity (ROE) and both short term debt and long term debt are used as the as proxies of financial leverage. Pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Fixed Effect (FE), and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) models have been used to test the relationship between financial leverage and profitability of firms. Result: This study finds a significant negative relationship between leverage and firm's profitability using the Pooled OLS method. The result is also consistent with the fixed effect and GMM method. This result implies that firm's profitability is negatively affected by the firm's capital structure. Conclusion: The study concludes that maximum textile firms use external debt as a source of finance as they don't have sufficient internally generated funds. This study recommends that firm should give more emphasize on generating fund internally to meet up their financing needs.

• Korean small business review
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.29-51
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• 2019

This study investigates how SMEs' (small and medium-sized enterprises) financing strategies affect firm valuation. Given that information asymmetry is engaged in firm valuation in the stock market, investors interpret the meanings of debt financing depending on how SMEs construct the portfolio of financing strategies (retained earnings vs debt financing), thereby making investment decision. Specifically, given that SMEs' debt financing has two meanings in the market signals, called "benefit" and "cost", this study postulates that firm valuation will be differently made by investors, depending on how they interpret the meanings of debt financing under choice competition between retained earnings and debt financing. In this study, we argue that under choice competition, as a SME's debt proportion increases, the "cost" signal outweighes the "benefit" signal, thereby decreasing firm valuation. Moreover, the effect of such signal can be contingent on the SME's characteristics-firm visibility. These ideas are examined using 363 U.S. SMEs ranging from 1971 to 2010. The fixed-effects models estimating Tobin's q show that under choice competition, a SME's debt proportion has a negative impact on firm valuation and that the firm's high visibility mitigates the effect of "cost" signal. In conclusion, this study sheds new light on how investors' interpretations of SMEs' financing strategies affect firm valuation.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.275-287
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• 2023

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between the issuance amount of subordinated bonds and firm value, aiming to determine how subordinated bonds are evaluated in the capital market. Design/methodology/approach - To achieve the research objective, this study empirically analyzes all samples of domestic listed insurers that have issued subordinated bonds. Through such empirical analysis, the study aims to confirm the value relevance of the recognized debt and examine how subordinated bonds are reflected in the firm valuation of insurers. Findings - The research finding indicates that subordinated bonds issued by insurers, despite being recognized as debt, did not show a significant relation with firm value. This result suggests a divergence from the typical characteristics of debt, reflecting the distinct evaluation of debt recognized through the issuance of subordinated bonds(subordinated debt) and general debt in the capital market. In this regard, additional investigation into the value relevance by categorizing debt into general debt and subordinated debt revealed a significant difference in the value relevance of the two types of debt. Research implications or Originality - These research findings indicate that the market evaluation of subordinated debt takes into consideration the economic attributes of the subordinated debt. Furthermore, this evaluation is interpreted to account for the regulatory consideration that recognizes subordinated debt as available capital for supervisory purpose.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.47-57
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• 2015

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to investigate the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory (the cost of financing increases with asymmetric information) among Korean retail firms from the perspective of debt capacity. According to the Pecking-order theory, a firm's first preference is to use internal funds for its capital needs, its next preference is the issuance of debt, and its last preference is the issuance of equity; this is due to the information asymmetry problem between existing shareholders and investors. However, prior empirical studies, such as Lemmon and Zender (2010), argue that the entire sample test for the Pecking-order theory could be misleading due to the different levels of debt issuance capability of each of the individual firms; in fact, they confirm that the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory improves after taking into account the differences in debt capacity of the U.S. firms they examined. This paper implements a case study approach among Korean retail firms to examine the relationship between debt capacity and the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory in Korea. Research design, data, and methodology - This study uses the sample of public retail firms on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) from the time period of 1990 to 2013. We gather related financial and accounting statements from the financial information firm WISEfn. Credit rating information is provided by the Korea Investor Service. We employ the models of Lemmon and Zender (2010) and Son and Kim (2013) to measure a firm's debt capacity. Their logit models use the rating dummy variable as a dependent variable and incorporate other firm characteristics as independent variables to estimate debt capacity. To test the Pecking-order theory, we adopt variants of the financing deficit model of Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999). In the test of the Pecking-order theory, we consider all of the changes in total debt obligations, current debt obligations, and long-term debt obligations. Results - Our main contribution to the literature is our confirmation of the predicted relationship between debt capacity and the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory among Korean retail firms. The coefficients on financing deficits become greater as a firm's debt capacity improves. This is consistent with the results of Lemmon and Zender (2010). The coefficients on the square of the financing deficits are also negative for the firms in the largest debt capacity group, which is also consistent with the predictions in prior literature. Conclusions - This study takes a case study approach by examining Korean retail firms. We confirm that the Pecking-order theory explains the capital structure of retail firms more appropriately, after taking into account the debt capacity of each firm. This result suggests the importance of debt capacity consideration in the testing of the Pecking-order theory. Our result also implies that there has been a potential underestimation of the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory in existing studies.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.101-108
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• 2013

In this paper, we examine the impact of family ownership mechanism on the firm's debt policy. Our results show that family firms tend to have a lower debt level, compared with non-family firms. Foreign investors are found to lead to a reduction in the firm's debt level through their monitoring incentives for dominating large shareholders. The firm's profitablily is related to a lower level of debt, whereas higher tangible assets and firm size are positively associated with high debt ratios due to the possibility of large collateral assets. Some implications are that foreign investors can reduce the agency costs of dominating large shareholders in family firms through monitoring activities, thus enhancing the efficiency of business decision-makings.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.1-29
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• 2009

Since convertible debt has both characteristics of stocks and bonds, its issuance can be related to both interests of stockholders and bondholders. Nevertheless, the existing studies focused mainly on the wealth effect on stockholders. In this paper we revisit the hypotheses on the issue of convertible debt especially from the viewpoint of a firm's growth, by making an additional investigation into bondholders' wealth effects. We find that stockholders' wealth increases with bondholders' wealth in the firm whose book-to-market ratio is low and thus is considered a growth firm. This finding seems consistent with the hypothesis in which the issue of convertible debt mitigates the agency cost of debt in the high-growth firm.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.73-82
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• 2015

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate whether information asymmetry could explain capital structures in Korean corporations. According to Myers (1984), firms prefer internal funding to external financing due to the costs associated with information asymmetry. When external financing is necessary, firms prefer to issue debt rather than equity by the same reasoning. Since Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999), numerous studies continue to debate the validity of the theory. In this paper, we show how the theory depends on assumptions and incorporated variables. We hope our investigation can provide helpful implications regarding capital structure, information asymmetry, and other firm characteristics. Specifically, our empirical results are complementary to the analysis of Son and Lee's (2015), a recent study that examines the pecking order theory prediction for Korean retail firms. Research design, data, and methodology - We test empirical models that are some variants of model used in Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999). The financial and accounting data are provided by WISEfn for the firms listed on the KOSPI during 1990 to 2013. Bond ratings are supplied by the Korea Investor Service (KIS). We take into account the heterogeneity in debt capacity; a firm's debt capacity is measured by using the method of Lemmon and Zender (2010) based on its bond ratings. Finally, we estimate empirical models suggested by Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999), Frank and Goyal (2003), and Lemmon and Zender (2010). Results - First, we find that Shyam-Sunder and Myers' (1999) prediction fails to explain total debt changes of Korean firms. Second, we find a non-monotonic relationship between total debt changes and financial deficits with respect to debt capacity. This contradicts the prediction of Lemmon and Zender (2010) that argues the pecking order theory survives with a monotonically increasing relationship. Third, we estimate a negative correlation coefficient between financial deficit and current debt changes. The result is the complete opposite of the prediction of Lemmon and Zender (2010). Finally, we also confirm the non-monotonic relationship between non-current debt changes and financial deficits with respect to debt capacity. Yet, the slope of coefficient is smaller than that of total debt change case. Indeed, the results are, to some extent, consistent with the prediction of pecking order theory, if we exclude the mid-debt capacity firms. Conclusions - Our empirical results complementary to the analysis of Son and Lee (2015), a recent study focusing on capital structure in Korean retail firms; their paper suggests interesting topics regarding capital structure, information asymmetry, and other firm characteristics in Korean corporations. Contrary to Son and Lee (2015), our results show that total debt changes and current debt changes are inconsistent with the prediction of Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999). However, similar to Son and Lee (2015), non-current debt changes are consistent with the pecking order prediction, in the case of excluding the mid-level debt capacity firms. This contrast allows us to infer that industry characteristics significantly affect the validity of the pecking order prediction. Further studies are needed to analyze the economics behind this phenomenon, which is beyond the scope of our paper. In addition, the estimation bias potentially matters regarding the firm-level debt capacity calculation. We also reserve this topic for future research.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.551-559
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• 2021

The maturity structure of corporate debt is one of the significant financing choices that a firm must make simultaneously while deciding how to finance its operational and investment decisions. Even though the capital structure is one of the scrutinized topics of interest in the corporate finance literature, scarce studies have investigated corporate debt maturity, even less so in the context of emerging markets. The choice of a suitable debt maturity structure is exceptionally relevant for firms. It can enable them to avoid mismatch by aligning assets in line with liabilities, addressing agency-related problems, sidestep the ill effects of cost of capital, and signaling the firms' earning quality and value. The study investigates the firm-specific and macroeconomic determinants significant for the debt maturity structure of Vietnamese corporate firms. A sample of 722 non-financial firms listed on the Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi Stock Exchange in Vietnam from 2007 to 2018 was taken to test the hypothesis. The study's methods fixed effects panel data analysis provides empirical evidence that firm size, firms' quality, liquidity, leverage, asset maturity, tax impact, and macro variables are significantly related to the debt maturity structure.