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Firm value is dependent on corporate which leads to increased value. High valued firms attract more investors. Towards firm value protection, minimum capital requirements were raised by the Central Bank of Kenya from 250 million to 1 billion shillings on commercial banks to cushion bank shareholders value. Despite the increased oversight and regulatory efforts on corporate governance to protect and enhance firm value, some commercial banks have recorded low firm value. Hence, this study sought to investigate the mediating effect of financial performance on the relationship between corporate governance and firm value of commercial banks in Kenya. The study was anchored on Agency Theory. Explanatory research design was adopted. Target population was forty four Kenyan commercial banks, where a census was conducted. Secondary data was collected from published financial statements and bank websites for the period 2009 to 2018. STATA version 13.0 was used for data analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistics specifically panel regression was used in data analysis. The study findings established that there is a statistically significant effect between financial performance and firm value of commercial banks in Kenya. Therefore, the study concluded that firms with good financial performance have high firm value. And as such, these calls for the management of the commercial banks improve financial performance which will go a long way in improving firm value. There is also need for Central bank of Kenya, Capital Markets Authority and Nairobi Securities Exchange to emphasis on corporate governance and short term goals to enable achievement of long term goals .  

This paper investigates how firms shifted their dividend policies and leverage policies in response to the economic shock caused by the 2008 financial crisis. The sample countries are United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, China, and Korea. The empirical relationship of firms’ dividend policies with their capital structures and earnings was likely to undergo a major change around the 2008 financial crisis, as firms adjusted their capital structures and dividend policies in response to the extreme credit crunch caused by the financial crisis. The extent and the speed that firms deleverage themselves and reduce their dividends were likely to be influenced by countries’ cultural and social norms. This paper finds a significant reduction in dividends across sample countries except Great Britain and France after the 2008 crisis. This finding supports the free cash flow theory that dividends are paid to dissipate free cash flow to address agency conflicts between managers and shareholders. This paper finds a higher correlation between dividends and leverages before the 2008 crisis, and that it strengthened after the crisis except Great Britain and Korea. This finding is consistent more with the pecking order theory than with the trade-off theory of leverage.

This study analyzes the effect of capital structure on the performance of telecommunications firms. The firm performance is measured by return on assets while capital structure is proxied with the ratio of debt total assets. Data of telecommunication firm in 62 countries period of year 2010-2020 proceed with a dynamic data panel regression model using the generalized method of moment approach. The empirical results indicated that capital structure of telecommunication firm has significantly impact to the firm performance in developed and developing countries as well as in integrated and wireless telecommunication firms.  The other factors that effect on firm performance are firm size and growth. The novelty of this study lies in the scope of analyses that cover world-wide telecommunication industry based on demographic group (developed and developing countries) and main businesses (integrated and wireless telecommunication).

The presence of contradictory theories and unpredictable empirics calls for this paper to survey the outcome of board traits on financial operation of Nigeria banks. Financial performance of a firm is as important as the firm. Yet, very few studies have examined its impact by the board of directors in Nigeria. Data were obtained and perused using descriptive and inferential figures. Findings show that size of board has significant and constructive bearing on business piece. However, board composition takes undesirable significance. Meetings of board and gender failed to show significance. But, board member nationality and firm size show negative and significant effects. We added by exploring impacts of boards on financial performance. We asked firms to increase the size of the board and engage more independent directors and reduce the number of board diligence and size of the firm. The strong plus impact of board size and firm size on financial operations is an interesting result allowing for additional interrogation of why these behaviours.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there is an optimal capital structure at which point firm is able to maximize its value. The author employ an advanced panel threshold regression estimation developed in 1999 by Hansen that will indicate whether there are positive and negative impacts of capital structure on firm value. The author has used data of among 90 unlisted Seafood Processing Enterprises in the South Central region of Vietnam (SEASCRs) during 2005–2011 period. The author has used book value of equity plus long- term debt (BVE) and return on equity (ROE) as surrogate for firm value and book value of total debt to total assets (TD/TA) as surrogate for capital structure and as the threshold variable. The empirical results strongly indicate that triple threshold effect exists between debt ratio and firm value when BVE is selected to proxy firm value. However, when ROE is selected to proxy firm value, the result shows that there exists double thresholds effect between debt ratio and firm value. From these results, the author  may conclude that the relationship between capital structure and firm value has a nonlinear relationship represents an convex Parapol shape. In addition, the findings suggest implications for SEASCRs on flexible usage of financial leverage. Specifically, SEASCRs should not use loans over 57.39%. To ensure and enhance the firm value, the scope of the optimal debt ratio should be less than 57.39%.

Dividend payout is one of financial options that Saccos consider as part of the key performance indicators for Saccos. Deposit taking Saccos in Kenya have faced numerous challenges namely, governance, managerial and operational such that the performance of a number of them continues to be sub optimal according to the report by SASRA. Therefore, this study sought to examine the influence of board characteristics on dividend policy of deposit taking Saccos in Kenya under guidance by agency cost theory. The study utelized causal design and descriptive survey design. The targeted population was 403 stakeholders sampling 201 through stratified simple random sampling. The sacco directors/chairpersons and the CFO/CEOs formed unit of analysis. Closed ended questionnaires were applied for primary data. A list of 20 Saccos in Starehe Sub County, Nairobi County were basis for pilot test to establish reliability and validity of research instruments. Cronbach Alpha was employed to ascertain reliability, whereas content and construct validity were utilized to attain validity. The data underwent analysis through the application of descriptive as well as inferential statistics. The investigation ensured that the assumptions of linear regression were satisfied before conducting numerous linear regressions. Tables were used to present data. The results indicated a positive significant association between board characteristics practices and dividend policy P:0.000<0.05 hence conclusive that deposit-taking Saccos in Kenya focused on board characteristics as envisaged. The study recommended that Sacco’s should diverse the board features to ensure they accommodate the dividend policy framework. 

There has always been controversy among researchers over how dividend policies affect share prices, and this equivocal relationship varies throughout international markets. This study is set to examine the relation between share prices and number of dividend policy and profitability variables. Based on the information from five insurance companies that are listed on Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) over the period 2014 and 2022, findings indicates that 55.3% of stock prices could be explained by factors related to profitability and dividend policy. The relationship between stock price, as a dependent variable, and earnings per share (EPS), dividend yield (DY), earning to price ratio (EP), risk premium (RP), and retention ratio (RR), as independent variables, was investigated in this study using OLS regression approach. The results of the regression analysis demonstrated a significant direct relationship between stock price and earnings per share (EPS), suggesting that investors choose highly profitable shares. At the 99% confidence level, the earnings to price ratio (EP) likewise revealed a statistically significant direct relationship with the stock price. At 90% confidence level, risk premium (RP) also shown a substantial direct relationship. The only variable that significantly correlated negatively with share prices was dividend yield (DY), suggesting that investors choose more stable payouts over uncertain future capital gains. Conversely, the retention ratio (RR) demonstrated a negligible direct impact on share prices.  

This study aims to examine dividend policies for companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange during the 2018-2022 period. Agency theory argues that dividend policy can reduce agency costs and reduce agency conflicts. The percentage of institutional ownership is used as a proxy for agency costs and can be used as a mechanism for lowering agency conflict. The total sample is 44 companies listed on the IDX. The estimation uses the pooling data method and 3SLS. This research develops a simultaneous system econometric model. This study argues that high institutional ownership leads to higher agency conflict, as management and institutions collaborate to prioritize their interests over other shareholders. Conversely, low institutional ownership leads to disputes between management, low institutional, and public shareholders. The entrenchment argument predicts higher conflict in high institutional ownership, while the convergence argument predicts common agency conflict in common institutional ownership.

The fact that publicly traded companies incur substantial costs when issuing new equity has been extensively documented in the empirical finance literature. In particular, numerous studies show that seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) tend to be priced significantly below prevailing market prices, thereby causing issuers to leave money on the table. Offer price discounting is an indirect flotation cost borne by pre-SEO shareholders that, according to extant theoretical and empirical research, arises due to asymmetric information. A heretofore unrelated literature argues that corporate multinationalism, i.e., establishing operations in one or more foreign countries, exacerbates the asymmetric information problem via greater costs to shareholders of monitoring the activities and performance of foreign subsidiaries. Motivated by these lines of thought, I investigate the relation between SEO discounting and corporate multinationalism. Using a sample of SEOs completed by U.S. firms between 1998 and 2016, I show that offer price discounting is significantly higher in offerings conducted by multinational firms relative to those conducted by purely domestic firms after controlling for known determinants of SEO discounts. This effect is stronger for multinational firms with foreign subsidiaries spread across a greater number of countries and weaker for multinationals that hire a high-reputation underwriter to lead the underwriting syndicate. These findings suggest that asymmetric information costs borne by seasoned equity issuers are increasing in the geographic scope of a firm’s operations, which can be mitigated by certification from a highly reputed lead underwriter.

Previous study finds that the firms with inferior growth options tend to issue callable bonds. Typically, these firms are characterized by stock underperformance. Previous study also finds that the floating rate as a superior alternative to the call provision, which is restrictive, when the interest rates are likely to fall. We study the long-term stock performance of floating rate notes (FRNs) issuing firms, issued when the interest rates are high. Stock overperformance would suggest floating rate as a preferred choice by the firms with high growth options rather the call option. We find that the FRNs are generally investment grade with extremely rare presence of a call option. We perform the analysis using Buy and hold abnormal return (BHAR) as the proxy for the long-term stock overperformance/underperformance. A sample of floating rate notes issued (1654) from 1992 to 2007, a period of high interest rates, reveals significant overperformance by the floating rate notes issuing firms in the high-rate paradigm. High growth firms, in the high-rate environment, significantly benefit from the floating rate provision which is less restrictive and less costly than the call option, which typically provides call protection period and pays a call premium. Floating rate provision better mitigates the interest rate risk for the firms in the high-rate environment. We find that the smaller, high growth, higher leverage, less profitable firms with greater agency issues benefit more from issuing FRNs in the high-rate environment. Our study has relevance to the stock portfolio construction and performance. We also perform a comparative analysis using the sample of floating rate notes issued (270) during 2008 to 2018, a period of low interest rates, and find stock underperformance. The implications are that the call option likely is a better choice for the firm since the firm preserves the right to forego exercising the option.