Leverage and Debt Maturity: The Implication of Size and Market Quotation

This thesis aims to add empirical evidence to the corporate finance literature by looking at the financing decisions with a specific application to small companies in the context of the UK relatively highly regulated Main market, versus the lightly regulated Alternative Investment Market (AIM). I do this by gathering data on all quoted dead and alive companies in both markets from 1995 to 2008. I then split my sample firms in each market into different size groups and test my hypothesis within and across each group and each market. The thesis consists of six chapters. After an introductory chapter, I review the existing literature on capital structure and debt maturity controversies with an emphasis on recent empirical work. The next three chapters consist of three research papers. The first paper looks at the capital structure decisions of companies quoted in AIM and Main market across different size groups. In the second research paper, the maturity structure of debt is investigated in both markets. The third research paper tests the determinants of the delisting decision, particularly the effect of leverage using a sample of AIM companies. In the last chapter, I provide a summary of the main conclusions of the study and highlight some promising ideas for future research.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

City University London

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Kashefi Pour, Eilnaz

• HG Finance