Zero-debt capital structure and the firm life cycle: empirical evidence from privately held SMEs

IF 2.8 4区 管理学 Q2 BUSINESS, FINANCE Venture Capital Pub Date : 2021-10-02 DOI:10.1080/13691066.2021.2001700
Vivien Lefebvre
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引用次数: 5

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent research on firms’ capital structure highlights that up to 25% of publicly listed firms are zero-debt firms, a stylized fact that challenges financial theory. In this paper, we study privately held zero-debt small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and identify that approximately 20% of our observations correspond to zero-debt firms. This result is especially surprising in the context of a bank-oriented economy, France. We show that the likelihood of being a zero-debt firm is higher when firms are new-born, which is not surprising, but also when they grow older. In other words, we observe a U-shaped relationship between age and the likelihood of being a zero-debt firm. Our results are consistent with the idea that new-born firms cannot access debt-financing because of a lack of reputation and high informational opacity. When firms grow older, they decide to become debt-free to preserve their financial flexibility and to reduce their dependency toward banks. Overall, this paper suggests that SMEs depend less on bank financing than currently assumed.
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零债务资本结构与企业生命周期:来自民营中小企业的经验证据
最近对公司资本结构的研究强调,高达25%的上市公司是零债务公司,这一事实对金融理论提出了挑战。在本文中,我们研究了私人持有的零债务中小企业(SMEs),并发现我们的观察结果中约有20%对应于零债务公司。这一结果在以银行为主导的法国经济背景下尤其令人惊讶。我们发现,当公司刚成立时,成为零债务公司的可能性更高,这并不奇怪,但当公司变老时,这种可能性也更高。换句话说,我们观察到年龄与成为零债务公司的可能性之间呈u型关系。我们的研究结果与以下观点一致:由于缺乏声誉和信息高度不透明,新生企业无法获得债务融资。当公司年岁渐长时,他们决定不再负债,以保持财务灵活性,减少对银行的依赖。总体而言,本文认为中小企业对银行融资的依赖程度低于目前的假设。
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来源期刊
Venture Capital
Venture Capital BUSINESS, FINANCE-
CiteScore
4.10
自引率
16.70%
发文量
21
期刊介绍: Venture Capital publishes cutting edge research-based papers from academics and practitioners on all aspects of private equity finance such as: •institutional venture capital •informal venture capital •corporate venture capital •public sector venture capital •community venture capital It also covers all aspects of the venture capital process from investment decision to exit, including studies on: •investment patterns •investment decision-making •investment performance •realisation of investment value exit routes (including the relationship with junior capital markets such as NASDAQ, EASDAQ, AIM and Nouvelle March). •economic impact and public policy
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