What drives corporate liquidity? An international survey of cash holdings and lines of credit

We survey chief financial officers from 29 countries to examine whether and why firms use lines of credit versus non-operational (excess) cash for their corporate liquidity. We find that these two liquidity sources are employed to hedge against different risks. Non-operational cash guards against future cash flow shocks in bad times, while credit lines give firms the option to exploit future business opportunities available in good times. Lines of credit are the dominant source of liquidity for companies around the world, comprising about 15% of assets, while less than half of the cash held by companies is held for non-operational purposes, comprising about 2% of assets. Across countries, firms make greater use of lines of credit when external credit markets are poorly developed.     

Labor Unions and Forms of Corporate Liquidity

We examine how the presence of labor unions affects a firm's choice of corporate liquidity between bank lines of credit and corporate cash holdings. We find that firms in industries with higher unionization rates hold a higher fraction of corporate liquidity in the form of bank lines of credit. We divide the firms into sub‐groups and find that this positive relationship holds for firms that are not in a state with right‐to‐work legislation and for firms that are financially constrained. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that a firm chooses the forms of corporate liquidity to take advantage of the bargaining benefits associated with bank lines of credit.     

The use of bank lines of credit in corporate liquidity management: A review of empirical evidence

This paper reviews empirical evidence on the use of bank lines of credit as a source of corporate liquidity. Traditional explanation for lines of credit is that they provide insurance against liquidity shocks, in much the same as way hoarding cash does. However, recent empirical research suggests that access to lines of credit is contingent on the credit quality of the borrower as well as the financial condition of the lender. These findings suggest that lines of credit are an imperfect substitute for cash as a source of corporate liquidity.     

Information Asymmetry and Corporate Liquidity Management: Evidence from Real Estate Investment Trusts

We examine the impact of information asymmetry on a firm??s choice between cash and credit lines for corporate liquidity management using a panel data set from real estate investment trusts (REITs). Information asymmetry, as measured by analyst forecast error and dispersion, is negatively related to the use of lines of credit. Specifically, firms with more severe information asymmetry are less likely to have access to bank credit lines. Concurrently, more transparent firms are more likely to utilize bank credit lines as opposed to cash for liquidity management. The results are robust to alternative information asymmetry proxies and specifications. These findings suggest that information asymmetry plays an important role in corporate liquidity management.     

Liquidity mergers

We study the interplay between corporate liquidity and asset reallocation. Our model shows that financially distressed firms are acquired by liquid firms in their industries even in the absence of operational synergies. We call these transactions “liquidity mergers,” since their purpose is to reallocate liquidity to firms that are otherwise inefficiently terminated. We show that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur when industry-level asset-specificity is high and firm-level asset-specificity is low. We analyze firms' liquidity policies as a function of real asset reallocation, examining the trade-offs between cash and credit lines. We verify the model's prediction that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur in industries in which assets are industry-specific, but transferable across firms. We also show that firms are more likely to use credit lines (relative to cash) in industries in which liquidity mergers are more frequent.     

Aggregate Risk and the Choice between Cash and Lines of Credit

Banks can create liquidity for firms by pooling their idiosyncratic risks. As a result, bank lines of credit to firms with greater aggregate risk should be costlier and such firms opt for cash in spite of the incurred liquidity premium. We find empirical support for this novel theoretical insight. Firms with higher beta have a higher ratio of cash to credit lines and face greater costs on their lines. In times of heightened aggregate volatility, banks exposed to undrawn credit lines become riskier; bank credit lines feature fewer initiations, higher spreads, and shorter maturity; and, firms’ cash reserves rise.     

Internal liquidity risk in corporate bond yield spreads

The recent global financial crisis reveals the important role of internal liquidity risk in corporate credit risk. However, few existing studies investigate its effects on bond yield spreads. Panel data for the period from year 1993 through 2008 show that corporate internal liquidity risk significantly impacts bond yield spreads (and changes) when controlling for well-known bond yield determinant variables, traditional accounting measures of corporate debt servicing ability, cash flow volatility, credit ratings, and state variables. This finding indicates that internal liquidity risk should therefore be incorporated into bond yield spread modeling.     

Tenant Quality and REIT Liquidity Management

Property values depend upon quality tenants and consistency (Smith: The RMA Journal 50-60, 2009). REIT firms are only as strong as their properties. In this research I examine how tenant quality affects REIT firm liquidity management (i.e. cash holdings and utilization of line of credit). I find that 1) tenant Altman Z-score and size are inversely related to total liquidity (cash plus unused credit line) and unused credit lines of REIT firms; 2) tenant size is inversely related to the total corporate liquidity and unused credit lines of REIT firms, but has no affect on REIT cash holdings; 3) tenant credit ratings are negatively related to total credit available and unused credit lines; 4) tenant book-to-market ratio and tenant profitability are negatively related to REIT cash holdings, but positively correlated to the total available credit lines and unused credit lines of REIT firms; 5) these effects vary across different property types. These results suggest that the analysis of tenant quality can offer insights into the firm policy and decision makings of REIT firms.     

Corporate cash holdings and CEO compensation incentives

We examine the effect of chief executive officer (CEO) compensation incentives on corporate cash holdings and the value of cash to better understand how compensation incentives designed to enhance the alignment of manager and shareholder interests could influence stockholder-bondholder conflicts. We find a positive relation between CEO risk-taking (vega) incentives and cash holdings, and we find a negative relation between vega and the value of cash to shareholders. The negative effect of vega on the value of cash is robust after controlling for corporate governance, is stronger in firms with high leverage, is reversed for unlevered firms, and is not present in financially constrained firms. We also find that the likelihood of liquidity covenants in new bank loans is increasing in CEO vega incentives. Our evidence primarily supports the costly contracting hypothesis, which asserts that bondholders anticipate greater risk-taking in high vega firms and, therefore, require greater liquidity.     

Coinsurance effect and bank lines of credit

The coinsurance effect hypothesis predicts that firm diversification reduces financial constraints through imperfectly correlated cash flows among segments. We empirically test the hypothesis by studying the relation between coinsurance effect and bank lines of credit. We find that coinsurance effect is associated with a higher availability of bank lines of credit, and that diversified firms hold a higher level of bank lines of credit if they have higher investment opportunities and if they are bank-dependent. We find that diversified firms hold a higher fraction of corporate liquidity in the form of bank lines of credit due to the coinsurance effect. The findings are consistent with the coinsurance effect hypothesis and contribute to the debate on the value consequence of firm diversification by disclosing a specific channel through which firm diversification affects financial constraints.     

Firms as liquidity providers: Evidence from the 2007–2008 financial crisis

Using a supplier–client matched sample, we study the effect of the 2007–2008 financial crisis on between-firm liquidity provision. Consistent with a causal effect of a negative shock to bank credit, we find that firms with high precrisis liquidity levels increased the trade credit extended to other corporations and subsequently experienced better performance as compared with ex ante cash-poor firms. Trade credit taken by constrained firms increased during this period. These findings are consistent with firms providing liquidity insurance to their clients when bank credit is scarce and offer an important precautionary savings motive for accumulating cash reserves.     

Market conditions,default risk and credit spreads

This study empirically examines the impact of the interaction between market and default risk on corporate credit spreads. Using credit default swap (CDS) spreads, we find that average credit spreads decrease in GDP growth rate, but increase in GDP growth volatility and jump risk in the equity market. At the market level, investor sentiment is the most important determinant of credit spreads. At the firm level, credit spreads generally rise with cash flow volatility and beta, with the effect of cash flow beta varying with market conditions. We identify implied volatility as the most significant determinant of default risk among firm-level characteristics. Overall, a major portion of individual credit spreads is accounted for by firm-level determinants of default risk, while macroeconomic variables are directly responsible for a lesser portion.     

How do firms learn? Evidence from corporate cash holdings during the COVID-19 pandemic

We examine the impact of COVID-19 on US corporate cash holdings. Our findings suggest that greater pandemic exposure is associated with higher corporate cash holdings and that firms learn from prior experiences as they manage their cash policies. More specifically, the level of cash holdings in firms that experienced severe financial constraints during the 2008 credit crisis and firms with prior severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and H1N1 exposure is significantly lower than that of firms with no prior epidemic or financial constraints experience. Overall, our findings support the learning behaviour of cash and contribute to corporate cash holdings literature by providing insights on the extent to which firms learn from prior experiences to manage their liquidity.     

Credit risk spillovers and cash holdings

This paper examines how credit risk spillovers affect corporate financial flexibility. We construct separate empirical proxies to disentangle the two channels of credit risk spillovers—credit risk contagion (CRC), where one firm's default increases the distress likelihood of another; and product market rivalry (PMR), where the same default strengthens the position of a competitor. We show that firms facing greater CRC have weaker subsequent operating performance and must contend with less favorable bank loan terms. Meanwhile, they accumulate more cash by issuing equity, selling assets, and reducing investment and payout. In contrast, PMR generally has opposite, albeit weaker, effects. Our findings suggest that credit risk spillovers, especially CRC, play an important role in corporate liquidity management.     

A Note on Capital IQ's Credit Line Data

Empirical work in finance is increasingly using Capital IQ's detailed data on capital structure. We compare the Capital IQ credit line data to hand‐collected data for a random sample of firms. Missing values in Capital IQ are prevalent, so the data set underreports the importance of corporate credit lines. When data are reported, Capital IQ often differs from hand‐collected credit line activity. We suggest methods for correcting the errors in the Capital IQ data, note which portions of the data are most reliable, and quantify the effects of Capital IQ's underreporting by examining the tradeoff between cash and lines of credit.     

A Unified Theory of Tobin's q,Corporate Investment,Financing, and Risk Management

We propose a model of dynamic investment, financing, and risk management for financially constrained firms. The model highlights the central importance of the endogenous marginal value of liquidity (cash and credit line) for corporate decisions. Our three main results are: (1) investment depends on the ratio of marginal q to the marginal value of liquidity, and the relation between investment and marginal q changes with the marginal source of funding; (2) optimal external financing and payout are characterized by an endogenous double‐barrier policy for the firm's cash‐capital ratio; and (3) liquidity management and derivatives hedging are complementary risk management tools.     

What determines the composition of a firm's cash reserves?

We investigate what determines variation in the composition of the financial assets that constitute corporate cash reserves and how this variation relates to other key liquidity management practices. The degree to which a firm invests its cash reserves in less liquid, longer-maturity financial assets that earn a higher yield is explained by financial constraints, the ability to accurately forecast short-term liquidity needs, and the firm's likelihood of defaulting on its debt. During years when a firm's cash reserves are required to fund increases in investment or operating expenses the firm transfers funds from less liquid to more liquid financial assets. A firm's decisions relating to the composition of its cash reserves interacts with other key liquidity management practices, such as relying on credit lines for liquidity, extending trade credit or using it as a source of financing, and holding large amounts of inventories. Our findings provide insights on an important component of corporate liquidity management decisions.     

The Influence of a Credit Rating Change on Corporate Cash Holdings and Their Marginal Value

We examine the influence of credit rating changes on corporate excess cash holdings. We find that downgraded firms increase excess cash holdings by approximately 3% of total noncash assets, compared to a matched sample of firms without a rating change. We largely observe no significant cash policy change following upgrades. While our findings support existing studies on the value of precautionary cash hoarding in the face of increased financial constraint, we find hoarding is value‐decreasing for shareholders. The marginal value of excess cash declines by at least 40% for downgraded firms and much more so when firms have histories of excess cash hoarding.     

Real asset liquidity,cash holdings,and the cost of corporate debt

We study the impact of the interplay between cash holdings and asset sales on the corporate debt spread. We allow cash holdings and asset sales to assist with both debt repayment and sequential investments. The interplay between cash holdings and asset sales leads to a convex relationship between credit spreads and the liquidity of the market for real assets. We use the 2008 financial crisis as a natural experiment and find that post-2008, the nonlinearity of the link between credit spreads and asset liquidity is pronounced, closely matching analytical predictions. This is especially acute for highly leveraged and low profitability firms.     

Credit refinancing and corporate tax avoidance

This study examines the disciplining effects of credit markets on firms’ corporate tax avoidance strategies. We show that, during adverse credit market conditions, firms with refinancing needs prefer to limit the after-tax cash flow benefits of tax avoidance to regain access to traditionally risk-averse credit markets. Our results show that firms increase their cash effective tax rate by two percentage points when facing refinancing constraints, and this effect is more pronounced for firms with lower asset redeployability and higher default probability. However, corporate governance mechanisms mitigate the relationship between tax avoidance and credit refinancing. Moreover, we show that firms decrease their tax avoidance strategies while leaving their leverage and debt shield unchanged. Overall, our findings are consistent with the observation that credit markets put pressure on tax-avoiding firms and contribute to the policy debate on disciplining tax avoiders.