Title: Impact of large bulk shareholders on debt financing of listed non-financial firms in Nigeria

Authors: Olufemi Bodunde Obembe; Anthony Enisan Akinlo; Oluwole Oladipo Aiyegbusi

Addresses: Department of Economics, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria ' Department of Economics, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria ' Department of Economics, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

Abstract: The impact of large bulk shareholders on debt financing is far from been conclusive both from developing and developed countries. While some authors reported a negative impact others reported a positive impact, yet others have documented a nonlinear relationship. Most of the studies conducted in the context of Nigeria have largely ignored the role of large shareholders in modelling debt financing. This study adopted a system GMM to examine the role of large shareholders on debt financing of listed non-financial firms in Nigeria. This study established that large bulk shareholders did not have any significant impact on short term debt, while a positive and significant impact was recorded for the long term debt. Hence, it is the submission of this paper that institutional ownership should be encouraged in order to strengthen monitoring of firms through debt financing in Nigeria.

Keywords: bulk shareholders; ownership structure; debt financing; corporate governance; leverage; capital structure; developing countries; Nigeria; non-financial firms; GMM; generalised method of moments; short term debt; long term debt; institutional ownership; monitoring.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEBR.2017.082270

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, 2017 Vol.13 No.2, pp.134 - 154

Received: 10 Jun 2016
Accepted: 30 Aug 2016
Published online: 14 Feb 2017 *

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