This study investigates the capital structure practices of companies listed on the JSE by analysing their operating performance before and after significant leverage events defined as increases or decreases of more than 30% in a year. We develop a performance scorecard that acts as a complete synopsis of firm performance on aspects relating to leverage. We use a fixed effects regression on unbalanced panel data to test the relationship between the leverage change and 12 concurrent performance variables selected on the basis of their pre-established impact on firm leverage according to prior studies. We also test the relationship between the leverage change and the same set of performance variables five years before and five years after the event. We run a multiple discriminant analysis to test the predictive ability of our model. A 20% hold-out sample achieves a 48% correct classification rate.

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The study examines the effects of executives’ media connection on corporate policies. Extant literature in finance, economics and journalism provide inconclusive evidence in determining whether media works as watchdog to the financial market or whether media facilitates bias through manipulation of corporate news events. I introduce two competing hypotheses that may explain the research question. Information Efficiency Hypothesis predicts that media connected firms mitigate information asymmetry among its investors, enjoy better governance, and are less likely to manipulate information on corporate policy choices. Manipulation Hypothesis, in contrary, suggests that firms may strategically utilize media connections to alter the information flow that may paint a tainted picture of the firm’s prospects, thereby facilitating greater misvaluation and devising of opportunistic corporate finance policies. I test these hypotheses on a set of investment policies (mergers outcomes and innovative efficiency) and financing policies (seasoned equity offerings and share repurchases). In the first essay, I find that media connection increases merger announcement return, reduces takeover premium, increases the likelihood of deal completion, although post-merger long term performance exhibit inconclusive results. Also, media connection reduces innovative efficiency and change in innovative efficiency attributable to media connections is harmful for the firm in the long run. Overall, results are consistent with the manipulation hypothesis to some extent though further investigation is required before disregarding the information efficiency effect. In the second essay, results show that media connection increases the likelihood of an SEO event, reduces the announcement period CAR. However, analysis of post SEO long term operating and stock performance show mixed results. For repurchasing firms, media connection increases announcement returns, increases the likelihood of repurchase and the amount repurchased. Media connection also increases the likelihood that repurchase is preferred over dividends as a mode of payout. Post repurchase long term operating and stock performance, however, provide inconsistent results. In general, results are consistent with the manipulation hypothesis though information efficiency hypothesis could not be ruled out entirely. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis. 1976. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. / Bibliography: leaves 139-142. / M.S.

This dissertation focuses the corporate behaviors in a dynamic world with uncertainty. Especially, I am interested in how firms tradeoff their investment and cash savings when external financing is costly. The first two chapters fit into this theme. One considers optimal investment and financing policies when uncertainty itself is time-varying, the second investigates how firms prepare themselves against devaluation risks. Both chapters build dynamic corporate theories and test them empirically. The third chapter steps back by asking why aggregate volatility is time-varying and why is it persistent in a dynamic general equilibrium with endogenous growth. I show that endogenous asset allocation between different assets can be the reason. In the first chapter I study how firms manage their cash savings, financing, and investment when aggregate uncertainty is time-varying. I develop and estimate a dynamic model featuring aggregate uncertainty shocks, costly external financing, investment irreversibility, and time-varying risk premia. In my model, firms have a precautionary-savings motive and real options to wait, both of which interact with time-varying uncertainty and are reinforced by state-dependent risk premia. My model confirms previous findings that firms save more in cash and invest less when aggregate uncertainty is high. In addition, I show that in the high uncertainty states, (1) firms with high profitability and low cash are more likely to delay equity issuance, (2) firms with low profitability and high cash are more likely to delay payout, and (3) aggregate equity issuance and payout are both lower. Finally, counterfactual experiments show that (1) a model without dynamic uncertainties cannot explain the observed firm behaviors in high uncertainty states, and (2) time-varying risk premia amplify the impact of the aggregate uncertainty shocks. In the second chapter, I investigate the relationship between investment and cash savings in a special setting: devaluation episodes in emerging markets. Devaluation events are typically anticipated by the economy but affect local firms in the tradable versus nontradable sectors differently. Tradable firms expect higher cash flows but nontradable firms expect lower ones, even their current cash flows are stable because of the currency-pegging. I build a model to show that, investment and cash savings are both complementarity, because of future prospects, and substitution because of limited current cash balance. Before devaluation, tradable firms invest more due to better expectation of the future but have to substitute for a lower cash savings tomorrow. Empirically, I use difference-in-difference approach and two devaluation episodes in Mexico and Argentina to test these predictions. I find strong evidence in Mexico that tradable firms invested more than nontradable firms and save less, as the devaluation was approaching. Evidence in Argentina is not strong. We discuss the potential remedies and future works to do. The final chapter explores asset allocation decisions and endogenous growth volatilities in an economy with endogenous growth. Firms have two produced inputs, capital and technology. When a representative firm optimally allocates the investment between the two inputs, both the consumption growth and its volatility are functions of the economy's technology-to-capital ratio. As a result, not only the long run consumption growth is volatile, but also its volatility is endogenously stochastic. Moreover, after a large negative or positive shock, the economy is away from its optimal allocation. This takes time for the economy to travel back to the optimal allocation because of the convex adjustment costs. As a result, both the consumption growth and its stochastic volatility are persistent. Finally, we discuss the asset pricing implication of the model and show that it microfounds Bansal and Yaron (2004) long-run risk model with time-varying volatilities.

I study financial intermediation and optimal regulation through the lens of banking theory and applied corporate finance. In my understanding, the theory on banking is primarily the theory on bank runs. And the key questions I have been pursuing to answer are the causes of runs in both the traditional and shadow banking sectors and the roles of the market and the regulator in maintaining financial stability. I start with the shadow banking system outside the traditional regulatory framework, which accumulated tremendous risks and led to a major financial crisis. Why don’t we simply shut down the shadow banking sector? Chapter 1 examines the role of shadow banking and optimal shadow bank regulation by developing a bank run model featuring the tradeoff between financial innovation and systemic risk. In my model, the traditional banking sector is regulated such that it can credibly provide safe assets, while a shadow banking sector creates space for beneficial investment opportunities created by financial innovation but also provides regulatory arbitrage opportunities for non-innovative banks. Systemic risk arises from the negative externalities of asset liquidation in the shadow banking sector, which may lead to a self-fulfilling recession and costly government bailouts. Heavy regulatory punishment on systemically important shadow banks controls existing systemic risk and has a deterrent effect on its accumulation ex ante. My paper is the first to formalize the designation authority of a macro-prudential regulator in systemic risk regulation. I then switch from the assets side to the liabilities side on the bank’s balance sheet. Chapter 2 introduces informed agents to the banking model and proposes a novel role of deposit insurance in fostering market discipline. While the moral hazard problem brought by deposit insurance weakens market discipline, I show that the opposite can be true when the insurance stabilizes uninformed funding and increases the benefits of monitoring through information acquisition. Knowing the bank asset type, informed depositors utilize the demand deposits as a monitoring device and discipline the bank into holding good assets. However, self-fulfilling bank runs initiated by uninformed depositors erodes the future returns, inducing more depositors to forgo information acquisition and act like uninformed depositors. A novel role of deposit insurance emerges from the strategic complementarity between monitoring efforts and stability of uninformed funding. A capped deposit insurance, by stabilizing the retail funding of the bank, restores wholesale depositors’ monitoring incentives and benefits market discipline. I examine the role of information in generating bank runs in Chapter 3, where I explore the relationship between redemption price and run risks in a model of money market fund industry. Money market funds compete with commercial banks by issuing demandable shares with stable redemption price, transforming risky assets into money-like claims outside the traditional banking sector. Floating net asset value (NAV) is widely believed a solution to money market fund runs by removing the first-mover advantages. In a coordination game model a la Angeletos and Werning (2006), I show that the floating net asset value, which allows investors to redeem shares at market-based price rather than book value, may lead to more self-fulfilling runs. Compared to stable net asset value, which becomes informative only when the regime is abandoned, the floating net asset value acts as a public noisy signal, coordinating investors’ behaviors and resulting in multiplicity. The destabilizing effect increases when investors’ capacity of acquiring private information is constrained. The model implications are consistent with a surge in the conversion from prime to government institutional funds in 2016, when the floating net asset value requirement on the former is the centerpiece of the money market fund reform.

I examine the firms with different hedging needs in their investment and financing strategy during the financial crisis in 2008. I define the hedging needs using the correlation between their cash flow and the industry Q. The firms with positive correlation between the cash flow and industry Q are defined as low hedging needs firms and the firms with negative correlation between the cash flow and industry Q are defined as high hedging needs firms. The low hedging needs firms have similar investment growth as high hedging needs firms before the crisis but significantly less investment growth during the crisis. However, the impact of financial crisis on firms with low hedging needs is smaller. Those firms efficiently respond to the decline of investment opportunity during crisis period by cutting capital expenditures since the capital expenditure in crisis are associated with lower profitability. And the empirical results support that there is a mix of supply shock and demand shock during financial crisis in 2008. / Tao, Xiaojue. / Thesis M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2015. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 22-24). / Title from PDF title page (viewed on 11, October, 2016). / Tao, Xiaojue.

Thesis (MBA.) -- Unversity of Limpopo, 2016 / The researcher using Quantitative process is aimed to appraise Corporate Social Investment (CSI) in relation to Corporate Financial Performance (CFP). This research addressed theoretical paradigms of CSI, leadership strategies applied to implement CSI and stakeholder theory is presented. The study area was Johannesburg Stock Exchange FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment Index. The top 35 recorded companies were chosen, and then from top 35, only 5 companies were used (25 observations). Data from 2011 to 2015 were obtained from audited integrated financial statements, websites, publications and annual reports. CSI indexes and financial presentation measures of companies were taken from the annual reports to be analysed using simple regression equation to examine the link between corporate social investments to company’s fiscal presentation. This study revealed a strong positive linkage among company’s social investment strategy implementation and share price, turnover, and return on equity. Companies that implemented social investment strategy noticed increase in profit because of factors such customer awareness, good firm reputation and competitive advantage.

published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Master / Master of Philosophy

 This thesis aims to investigate the effects of mean reversion on dynamic corporate finance decisions and stock pricing. In Chapter 1, a continuous-time real option model of mature firm that produces product with exogenous mean reverting price is developed to study the firm’s optimal exit and leverage policies. Simulation results show that both liquidation and bankruptcy triggers are negatively related to the long run price levels, while the speed of mean reversion interacts with the long run price level to affect the firm’s exit decisions in two opposite directions depending on the level’s relative magnitude to total operating expenses (the firm’s instantaneous operation costs plus coupon payments). Regarding the leverage policy, apart from showing the static tradeoff result that firm uses more debts when the current revenues are high, the model exhibits at high long run price levels low-debt scenarios that are analogous to the pecking order prediction, suggesting that both static tradeoff and pecking order effects coexist under a mean reversion environment. Because equity values increase more vigorously with prices than debt values do, the tradeoff effect is overwhelmed and the resulting optimal leverage ratios are generally decreasing with the current price levels. Chapter 2 extends the model in Chapter 1 to derive the closed-form expression of the firm’s equity beta. Because expected stock returns are linearly related to the equity beta by model assumption, several implications to the cross-sectional behaviors of stock returns are obtained. First, it is predicted that firms with mean reverting characteristics should earn lower average returns than others without. The model further reveals the coexistence of positive book-to-market and leverage premiums to stock returns. Most importantly, due to the possession of bankruptcy option by equity holders, high distress risk stocks are expected to earn lower average returns than otherwise similar but low distress risk stocks. This provides an extra dimension to study the ‘distress premium puzzle’. Finally to verify the model predictions, empirical tests using historical market and accounting data from CRSP and COMPUSTAT are conducted, and supportive results are generally obtained. / published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy