Bank-appointed directors and idiosyncratic volatility: evidence from India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of the bank-appointed directors on the agency costs of debt by using the idiosyncratic risk of stock returns as a measure of agency costs of debt.Design/methodology/approachWe use multivariate panel regression, event study and finally, propensity score matching approaches to test our hypothesis. The robustness of the results is tested for possible endogeneity issues by employing instrumental variable two-stage least square (IV-2SLS) technique.FindingsConsistent with the efficient monitoring hypothesis, we find a negative relationship between the presence of the bank-appointed director and the idiosyncratic volatility of stock returns among Indian firms. This implies that such firms take up less risky investment projects.Originality/valueWe contribute to the literature from two aspects. First, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that examines the monitoring efficiency of creditors' governance. Hitherto, such examinations are done from the shareholders' perspective. Second, we examine the role of the bank-appointed directors on the board of non-financial firms in an emerging world context and find, contrary to the existing evidence in the US context, active monitoring role played by such directors.

Kelly Solar

A small start-up company must make additional investments to maximize its firm value. But the company owner will not make this investment unless she can renegotiate outstanding debt claims. Solving this “debt overhang” problem through negotiation is the focus of the case. In this context, students are exposed to a variety of issues: the nature of financial claims, bargaining and negotiation fundamentals, and agency costs of debt.

Corporate governance and information asymmetry between shareholders and lenders: an analysis of Italian listed companies

This paper analyzes the information asymmetry between owner/manager and lenders. More specifically, the research investigates the role of corporate governance mechanisms in reducing the agency costs of debt. The findings show that lenders perceive higher agency costs of debt if the controlling shareholder owns a percentage of capital greater than 66%. Results also show that the presence of independent directors elected by minority shareholders on the board mitigates the agency conflicts between borrowers and lenders. In the same way, the audit committee independence reduces the agency costs of debt. Moreover, the study shows that when the audit committee chairman coincides with the board chairman banks perceive more risk and, therefore, a bigger asymmetry. This coincidence increases the concentration of power in the hands of just one person and this enhances the likelihood of opportunistic actions by the management that could damage lenders. This means that it is costly for companies to concede to just one person too much influence over the board activities, because it reduces the effectiveness of the monitoring role played by independent directors, increasing the information asymmetry between borrowers and lenders.

The Effects Of Ultimate Controlling Shareholders On Debt Maturity Structure

Using a balanced panel data of 915 Chinese listed firms, this paper studies the effect of ultimate controlling shareholders on debt maturity structure by adopting random effect model. Our results show: the larger the ultimate controlling shareholders cash flow rights, the higher the cost of expropriating outside investors by ultimate controlling shareholder, and can reduce the agency costs of debt financing, so banks are willing to provide more long term debt funds for the firms. Ultimate controlling shareholders cash flow rights are positively related to debt maturity structure. The larger the divergence between ultimate controlling shareholders control rights and cash flow rights, the more likely of ultimate controlling shareholder to expropriate outside investors, and this increase the agency conflicts between firms and creditor, which leading to higher agency costs of debt financing, so banks tend to provide more short term funds for firms to constrain the ultimate controlling shareholder. The divergence between ultimate controlling shareholders controlling rights and cash flow rights are negatively related to debt maturity structure.