Tekijä: | Heyman, D. Deloof, M. Ooghe, H. |
Otsikko: | The financial structure of private held Belgian firms |
Lehti: | Small business economics
2008 : MAR, VOL. 30:3, p. 301-313 |
Asiasana: | Belgium capital structure of companies debt private companies small business |
Kieli: | eng |
Tiivistelmä: | This paper explores the determinants of the debt-equity choice and the debt maturity choice. The focus is on small privately held companies in a creditor oriented environment, which is represented by data from 4,706 firm-year observations for 1132 Belgian firms in 1996-2000. The main findings suggest that asymmetric information and agency costs of debt are important determinants of firm's financial structure. The growth rate of firm, the amount of tangible asset and the profitability of the firm were found to be factors affecting the debt ratio. The results indicate also that firms tend to match the maturity of debt with the maturity of their assets. It is found that growth options do not affect the debt maturity, but credit risk is important factor affecting debt maturity. Contrary to number of previous studies, this work indicates that larger firms seem to have a higher debt ratio and a shorter debt maturity that small firms. |
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