Hedging,financing, and investment decisions: Theory and empirical tests

In this paper we theoretically and empirically examine the interaction between hedging, financing, and investment decisions. A simple equilibrium model with costly financial distress suggests that as firms become more efficient at risky investments vis a vis low risk investments, they will borrow less, invest more in risky assets, and hedge more. The model also predicts a positive relationship between hedging and leverage – a result consistent with debt capacity arguments. We test the model empirically using a simultaneous equations framework to investigate the determinants of firm-level hedging, financing and investing decisions. The results strongly support the hypothesis that the hedging, financing and investment decisions are jointly determined. In addition, we find strong support for the central hypothesis that firms more efficient investing in risky technologies more aggressively hedge and use less debt financing in order to maximize their comparative advantage.     

Levered Returns

This paper revisits the theoretical relation between financial leverage and stock returns in a dynamic world where both corporate investment and financing decisions are endogenous. We find that the link between leverage and stock returns is more complex than static textbook examples suggest, and depends on the investment opportunities available to the firm. In the presence of financial market imperfections, leverage and investment are generally correlated so that highly levered firms are also mature firms with relatively more (safe) book assets and fewer (risky) growth opportunities. A quantitative version of our model matches several stylized facts about leverage and returns.     

Diversification and cash dynamics

Why do diversified firms hold significantly less cash than focused firms? We study this question using a dynamic model of corporate investment, saving, and diversification decisions. We find that investment dynamics are more important in explaining the cash differences than financing frictions. More efficient internal capital markets increase cash differences and are especially valuable when a firm diversifies or refocuses. Contrary to static models, more diverse conglomerates have lower cash differences. Endogenous selection (diversifying firms are larger and have better growth opportunities) accounts for 68% of the cash difference, and the diversification event itself reduces cash holdings by 32%.     

THE IMPACT OF POLITICAL CONNECTIONS ON FIRMS’ OPERATING PERFORMANCE AND FINANCING DECISIONS

We investigate the impact that the political connections of publicly traded firms have on their performance and financing decisions. Using a long‐term event study covering a sample of 234 politically connected firms headquartered in 12 developed and 11 developing countries from 1989 to 2003, we find that firms increase their performance and indebtedness after the establishment of a political connection. We also find that the political connection is more strongly associated with changes in leverage and operating performance for firms with closer ties to political power. Overall, our study confirms that politically connected firms gain easier access to credit and reap benefits in terms of performance from their ties with politicians.     

Family Control and Financing Decisions

This study uses a comprehensive European dataset to investigate the role of family control in corporate financing decisions during the period 1998–2008. We find that family firms have a preference for debt financing, a non‐control‐diluting security, and are more reluctant than non‐family firms to raise capital through equity offerings. We also find that credit markets are prone to provide long‐term debt to family firms, indicating that they view their investment decisions as less risky. In fact, our empirical results demonstrate that family firms invest less than non‐family firms in high‐risk, research and development (R&D) projects, but not in low‐risk, fixed‐asset capital expenditure (CAPEX) projects, suggesting that fear of control loss in family firms deters risk‐taking. Overall, our findings reveal that the external financing (and investment) decisions of family firms are in greater (lesser) conflict with the interests of minority shareholders (bondholders).     

Collateral and capital structure

We develop a dynamic model of investment, capital structure, leasing, and risk management based on firms' need to collateralize promises to pay with tangible assets. Both financing and risk management involve promises to pay subject to collateral constraints. Leasing is strongly collateralized costly financing and permits greater leverage. More constrained firms hedge less and lease more, both cross-sectionally and dynamically. Mature firms suffering adverse cash flow shocks may cut risk management and sell and lease back assets. Persistence of productivity reduces the benefits to hedging low cash flows and can lead firms not to hedge at all.     

Interactions of corporate financing and investment decisions: The effects of agency conflicts

We examine interactions between flexible financing and investment decisions in a model with stockholder–bondholder conflicts over investment policy. We find that financial flexibility encourages the choice of short-term debt thereby dramatically reducing the agency costs of under- and overinvestment. However, the reduction in agency costs may not encourage the firm to increase leverage, since the firm's initial debt level choice depends on the type of growth options in its investment opportunity set. The model has a number of testable predictions for the joint choice of leverage and maturity, and how these choices interact with a firm's growth opportunities.     

Information Asymmetry and Corporate Investment Decisions: A Dynamic Approach

This paper develops a dynamic model of the financing and operating decisions of firms in the presence of information asymmetry. When the value of growth opportunities is not fully recognized, securities are undervalued, thus influencing the financing and investment decisions. The agency‐based underinvestment problem is re‐examined under information asymmetry. For firms with greater growth opportunities, the investment distortion resulting from information asymmetry is especially significant. Information asymmetry also increases the expected bankruptcy cost. The cost of information asymmetry in terms of both the firm value and the information spread under the optimal capital structure could be substantial.     

Financial hedging and corporate investment

Building on the well-documented relationship between corporate financial hedging and firms' borrowing costs, this study examines the impact of utilizing financial derivative instruments on corporate investment. We document that engaging in financial hedging enables firms to pursue more inorganic growth opportunities in the form of M&As. Acquiring firms with financial hedging programs have a lower borrowing cost and are more likely to pay for their deals with cash and use external borrowing. While financial hedging serves as a vehicle for firms to bring their inorganic investment plans to fruition by facilitating their financing, it also leads to inferior investment choices when conflicts of interest among managers and shareholders are more likely to arise. Our study shows for the first time that the financial flexibility emanating from corporate financial hedging can give rise to agency costs by instigating entrenched managers to overinvest.     

Preemption,leverage, and financing constraints

This paper investigates the interactions between preemptive competition and leverage in a duopoly market. We investigate both a case in which the firms have optimal financial structures, and a case in which financing constraints require firms to finance their investments by debt. Our findings are that the second mover always leaves the duopoly market before the leader, although the leader may exit before the follower's entry. The leverage effects of debt financing can increase the value of a firm and accelerate investment, even in the presence of preemptive competition. Notably, financing constraints can delay preemptive investment and improve firm values in preemptive equilibrium. Indeed, the leader's high leverage due to financing constraints can lower the first-mover advantage and weaken preemptive competition. Especially with strong first-mover advantage, the financing constraint effects can dominate the leverage effects. These findings are almost consistent with the empirical evidence, which shows that high leverage leads to competitive disadvantage and mitigates product market competition.     

Firm growth type and capital structure persistence

We find that growth type (identified by a two-way sort on firm initial market-to-book ratio and asset tangibility) can parsimoniously predict significantly dispersed and persistently distinct future leverage ratios. Growth type is persistent; growth-type-sorted cross-sections of corporate fundamental variables (such as tangible versus intangible investment style) are also meaningfully persistent. As economic and market conditions improve, low growth type firms are keener to issue new debt than equity, whereas high growth type firms are least likely to issue debt and keenest to issue equity. These findings demonstrate that firms rationally invest and seek financing in a manner compatible with their growth types. Consistent with a generalized Myers–Majluf framework, growth type compatibility enables distinct growth types and hence specifications of market imperfection or informational environments to persist. Growth type is apparently a fundamental factor for capital structure persistence.     

Financial expertise of directors

We analyze how directors with financial expertise affect corporate decisions. Using a novel panel data set, we find that financial experts exert significant influence, though not necessarily in the interest of shareholders. When commercial bankers join boards, external funding increases and investment-cash flow sensitivity decreases. However, the increased financing flows to firms with good credit but poor investment opportunities. Similarly, investment bankers on boards are associated with larger bond issues but worse acquisitions. We find little evidence that financial experts affect compensation policy. The results suggest that increasing financial expertise on boards may not benefit shareholders if conflicting interests (e.g., bank profits) are neglected.     

Stock price informativeness,cross-listings,and investment decisions

We show that a cross-listing enables firms to obtain, from the stock market, more precise information about the value of their growth opportunities. Thus, cross-listed firms make better investment decisions and trade at a premium. This theory of cross-listings implies that the sensitivity of investment to stock prices is larger for cross-listed firms. Moreover, the cross-listing premium is positively related to the size of growth opportunities and negatively related to the quality of managerial information. The sensitivity of the premium to the size of growth opportunities increases with factors that strengthen the impact of the cross-listing on price informativeness.     

The Effect Of International Acquisitions on Firm Leverage

To determine whether corporate international diversification leads firms to increase their leverage, we perform an event study that compares the leverage of corporations before and after they acquire foreign subsidiaries. We find that on average leverage increases from the first to the third year following the acquisition. When we examine the relation between additional debt financing after foreign acquisitions and the characteristics of these acquisitions, we find that in addition to such major determinants as size and profitability, debt financing is explained by geographical and industrial diversification effects.     

Working capital management in SMEs

This paper analyses the determinants of Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC) for small‐ and medium‐sized firms. It has been found that these firms have a target CCC length to which they attempt to converge, and that they try to adjust to their target quickly. The results also show that it is longer for older firms and companies with greater cash flows. In contrast, firms with more growth opportunities, and firms with higher leverage, investment in fixed assets and return on assets have a more aggressive working capital policy.     

The Effect of Venture Capital Financing on the Sensitivity to Cash Flow of Firm's Investments

This work studies the effect of venture capital (VC) financing on firms' investments in a longitudinal sample of 379 Italian unlisted new‐technology‐based firms (NTBFs) observed over the 10‐year period from 1994 to 2003. We distinguish the effects of VC financing according to the type of investor: independent VC (IVC) funds and corporate VC (CVC) investors. Previous studies argue that NTBFs are the firms most likely to be financially constrained. The technology‐intensive nature of their activity and their lack of a track record increase adverse selection and moral hazard problems. Moreover, most of their assets are firm‐specific or intangible and hence cannot be pledged as collateral. In accordance with this view, we show that the investment rate of NTBFs is strongly positively correlated with their current cash flows. We also find that after receiving VC financing, NTBFs increase their investment rate independently of the type of VC investor. However, the investments of CVC‐backed firms remain sensitive to shocks in cash flows, whereas IVC‐backed firms exhibit a low and statistically not significant investment–cash flow sensitivity that we interpret as a signal of the removal of financial constraints.     

Debt Maturity Structure and Firm Investment

This study shows that the maturity structure of a firm's debt has a significant impact on its investment decisions. We show, after controlling for the effect of the overall level of leverage, that a higher percentage of long-term debt in total debt significantly reduces investment for firms with high growth opportunities. In contrast, the correlation between debt maturity and investment is not significant for firms with low growth opportunities. The results are strong at the firm level and at the business segment level. These results hold even after controlling for the endogeneity problem inherent in the relationship between total leverage, the maturity composition of leverage, and investment.     

The Debt Trap: Wealth Transfers and Debt‐Equity Choices of Junk‐Grade Firms

If outstanding debt is risky, issuing equity transfers wealth from equity holders to debt holders. If existing leverage is high and bankruptcy costs are small, this wealth transfer effect outweighs the gains to stockholders from optimizing firm value. Empirically, we find that for investment‐grade firms, higher leverage implies a greater likelihood of issuing equity, as expected in a standard tradeoff model. However, consistent with the impact of wealth transfer effects, for junk‐grade firms, higher leverage implies a greater likelihood of issuing debt. The analysis implies an additional route through which historical shocks determine firms’ financing choices.     

MANAGERIAL OWNERSHIP,TAKEOVER DEFENSES,AND DEBT FINANCING

We examine the effect of agency conflicts on debt financing and show that managerial ownership and its interaction with takeover defenses affect these decisions. We find that (1) the relation between leverage and takeover defenses becomes insignificant when we control for the interaction of these defenses with managerial ownership, and (2) firms with large managerial ownership operate at high debt levels unless they have a large number of takeover defenses. Therefore, a two‐dimensional aspect of governance that includes the interaction between managerial ownership and takeover defenses is useful in understanding the effect of agency conflicts on firms' debt financing decisions.     

Risk Management and Firm Value: Evidence from Weather Derivatives

This paper shows that active risk management policies lead to an increase in firm value. To identify the effect of hedging and to overcome endogeneity concerns, we exploit the introduction of weather derivatives as an exogenous shock to firms’ ability to hedge weather risks. This innovation disproportionately benefits weather‐sensitive firms, irrespective of their future investment opportunities. Using this natural experiment and data from energy firms, we find that derivatives lead to higher valuations, investments, and leverage. Overall, our results demonstrate that risk management has real consequences on firm outcomes.