<p>Companies need capital in order to run their business, do necessary investments and grow larger. These actions are combined with high costs where both internal and external financing might be appropriate. Capital structure is the relation between debt and equity.</p><p>In this thesis we have focused on the decision behind the capital structure. We have focused on the road freight industry and we have tried to find out how management reason about their decision. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to describe and analyze SMEs’ decision of capital structure within the road freight sector in the Jönköping region. Emphasise is put on the different aspects that influence the capital structure decision and to what extent this is a strategic issue coloured by personal beliefs.</p><p>To fulfill the purpose mainly a qualitative approach with primary data from structured interviews has been used. The interviews were conducted face-to-face with six owner and/or managers. Further on, secondary data from the firms’ annual reports were used and analyzed.</p><p>The pecking order theory explains that firms, especially SMEs, prefer to finance their businesses with internally generated funds. Focus of the theoretical part are on theories of what factors that affects the capital structure decision, how this can be argued to be a strategic question for SMEs, how risk affects the capital structure decision and how this decision is made in a family business. These theories are presented to shed light on the capital structure decision making process of SMEs.</p><p>From this study it is found that the majority of the companies’ prefer internal financing i.e. reinvested earnings, and as a second alternative to use debt in form of bank loans. The study also shows that the reasons behind this preferred order are the will of being independent, previous experience and managements’ risk-taking propensity. We believe that these factors combined with beliefs about debt and realized need for debt works as a base for how a capital structure strategy is discussed, formed and developed. From this study it can also be concluded that risk indirect affects the capital structure decision and that a restrictive view on debt leads to a restrictive desire to grow since a fast growth in most cases needs to be financed by debt. Last, the study concludes that even though the studied firms prefer to finance with retained earnings they all use debt more or less.</p>

Companies need capital in order to run their business, do necessary investments and grow larger. These actions are combined with high costs where both internal and external financing might be appropriate. Capital structure is the relation between debt and equity. In this thesis we have focused on the decision behind the capital structure. We have focused on the road freight industry and we have tried to find out how management reason about their decision. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to describe and analyze SMEs’ decision of capital structure within the road freight sector in the Jönköping region. Emphasise is put on the different aspects that influence the capital structure decision and to what extent this is a strategic issue coloured by personal beliefs. To fulfill the purpose mainly a qualitative approach with primary data from structured interviews has been used. The interviews were conducted face-to-face with six owner and/or managers. Further on, secondary data from the firms’ annual reports were used and analyzed. The pecking order theory explains that firms, especially SMEs, prefer to finance their businesses with internally generated funds. Focus of the theoretical part are on theories of what factors that affects the capital structure decision, how this can be argued to be a strategic question for SMEs, how risk affects the capital structure decision and how this decision is made in a family business. These theories are presented to shed light on the capital structure decision making process of SMEs. From this study it is found that the majority of the companies’ prefer internal financing i.e. reinvested earnings, and as a second alternative to use debt in form of bank loans. The study also shows that the reasons behind this preferred order are the will of being independent, previous experience and managements’ risk-taking propensity. We believe that these factors combined with beliefs about debt and realized need for debt works as a base for how a capital structure strategy is discussed, formed and developed. From this study it can also be concluded that risk indirect affects the capital structure decision and that a restrictive view on debt leads to a restrictive desire to grow since a fast growth in most cases needs to be financed by debt. Last, the study concludes that even though the studied firms prefer to finance with retained earnings they all use debt more or less.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-10-17T13:59:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 erikaburkowski.pdf: 845391 bytes, checksum: 14c988927e98f8c13c85ad45e55d0a1c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-10-25T11:59:26Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 erikaburkowski.pdf: 845391 bytes, checksum: 14c988927e98f8c13c85ad45e55d0a1c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-25T11:59:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 erikaburkowski.pdf: 845391 bytes, checksum: 14c988927e98f8c13c85ad45e55d0a1c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-02-27 / Esta dissertação pesquisou 99 empresas localizadas na cidade de Juiz de Fora (MG), buscando identificar um perfil de financiamento das mesmas. Utilizou-se a Análise Conjunta (Conjoint) para identificar as características mais desejadas de um instrumento de financiamento por essas empresas. Realizaram-se revisões bibliográficas acerca de temas como estrutura de capital, finanças comportamentais e trabalhos empíricos realizados em micro e pequenas empresas, além da Análise de Correspondência, para se identificar os atributos das empresas relacionados à decisão de financiamento atual e ideal. Constatou-se que a maior parte das empresas da amostra utiliza financiamentos de curto e de longo prazo; o endividamento total se apresenta próximo a 20% do capital total. A variável ‘novos Investimentos’ foi significativa para os financiamentos de curto longo prazos. As variáveis ‘tamanho’ (medida pelo faturamento), ‘, ‘expectativa de retorno dos novos investimentos’ e ‘fonte de financiamento dos novos investimentos’ foram significantes para financiamentos de curto prazo. Com os financiamentos de longo prazo, estão relacionadas ‘destino do financiamento’, ‘percepção da volatilidade’, ‘expectativa de crescimento’ e ‘intenção de novos investimentos’. Conclusivamente, observa-se adequação da hierarquia de fontes modificada (HOLMES e KENT, 1991) e do modelo de decisão de estrutura de capital em pequenas empresas (MICHAELAS et al, 1998). / This dissertation surveys 99 companies located in Juiz de Fora (Minas Gerais State), searching for patterns in their capital structure. Conjoint Analysis was used to capture the most preferable items in a financing instrument chosen by them. A literature review on capital structure, behavioral finance and empirical works concerning to small companies was made and Correspondence Analysis was used to identify companies attributes related either to the actual capital structure and capital structure preferences. The findings were: most of the companies in the sample use short and long term funds. Debt was nearly 20% of total funds. Variable “new investments’ was significant to the short- and long-term debt. Variables “size” (measured by Net Income), “new investments return expectation” and “funding source of new investments” were related to short-term debt. Variables “application of new funding”, “volatility perception”, “growth expectation” and “intention of doing new investments” were related to long-term debt. Conclusively, evidences of the modified pecking order theory (HOLMES e KENT, 1991) and the capital structure model adequacy in small companies (MICHAELAS et al, 1998) were found.