IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jemstr/v2y1993i4p531-65.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial Distress and Optimal Capital Structure Adjustments

Author

Listed:
  • Heinkel, Robert
  • Zechner, Josef

Abstract

We show that asymmetric information may prevent firms with pure discount bonds from renegotiating their capital structure prior to the maturity of the debt, although this would increase the value of the firm when its prospects are poor. This inefficiency can be reduced if the firm issues debt with a risky intermediate debt payment, such as a coupon or a sinking fund payment. We also demonstrate that bankruptcy institutions leading to deviations from absolute priority can improve the timing of recapitalizations by financially distressed firms. Finally, we show that, under certain conditions, the optimal capital structure adjustment during financial distress consists of a convertible debt-for-straight debt swap. Copyright 1993 by MIT Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Heinkel, Robert & Zechner, Josef, 1993. "Financial Distress and Optimal Capital Structure Adjustments," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(4), pages 531-565, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:2:y:1993:i:4:p:531-65
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1982. "Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 97-109, January.
    2. Bergman, Yaacov Z. & Callen, Jeffrey L., 1991. "Opportunistic underinvestment in debt renegotiation and capital structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 137-171, March.
    3. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1998. "Default and Renegotiation: A Dynamic Model of Debt," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 1-41.
    4. Masulis, Ronald W. & Trueman, Brett, 1988. "Corporate Investment and Dividend Decisions under Differential Personal Taxation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 369-385, December.
    5. Flannery, Mark J, 1986. "Asymmetric Information and Risky Debt Maturity Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(1), pages 19-37, March.
    6. Jonathan Eaton & Mark Gersovitz, 1981. "Debt with Potential Repudiation: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(2), pages 289-309.
    7. Kane, Alex & Marcus, Alan J. & McDonald, Robert L., 1985. "Debt Policy and the Rate of Return Premium to Leverage," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(4), pages 479-499, December.
    8. Bengt Holmstrom & Laurence Weiss, 1985. "Managerial Incentives, Investment and Aggregate Implications: Scale Effects," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(3), pages 403-425.
    9. Barnea, Amir & Haugen, Robert A & Senbet, Lemma W, 1980. "A Rationale for Debt Maturity Structure and Call Provisions in the Agency Theoretic Framework," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(5), pages 1223-1234, December.
    10. Eberhart, Allan C & Moore, William T & Roenfeldt, Rodney L, 1990. "Security Pricing and Deviations from the Absolute Priority Rule in Bankruptcy Proceedings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(5), pages 1457-1469, December.
    11. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1990. "Capital Structure and the Informational Role of Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 321-349, June.
    12. Townsend, Robert M., 1979. "Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 265-293, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bruno Biais & Christophe Bisiere & Jean-Paul Decamps, 2000. "A Structural Econometric Investigation of the Agency Theory of Financial Structure," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0817, Econometric Society.
    2. Lucian Arye Bebchuk, 2002. "Ex Ante Costs of Violating Absolute Priority in Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 445-460, February.
    3. Lucian Arye Bebchuk, 2001. "Ex Ante Costs of Violating Absolute Priority in Bankruptcy," NBER Working Papers 8388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Isagawa, Nobuyuki, 2006. "Lender's risk incentive and debt concession," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 141-150.
    5. Nobuyuki Isagawa & Satoru Yamaguchi & Tadayasu Yamashita, 2010. "Debt Forgiveness And Stock Price Reaction Of Lending Banks: Theory And Evidence From Japan," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 33(3), pages 267-287, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stein, Jeremy C., 2003. "Agency, information and corporate investment," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 111-165, Elsevier.
    2. Detragiache, Enrica, 1995. "Adverse selection and the costs of financial distress," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(3-4), pages 347-365, April.
    3. Maria-Teresa Marchica, "undated". "Debt Maturity and the Characteristics of Ownership Structure: An Empirical Investigation of UK Firms," Discussion Papers 05/29, Department of Economics, University of York.
    4. Daniševská, P. & de Jong, A. & Verbeek, M.J.C.M., 2004. "Do Banks Influence the Capital Structure Choices of Firms?," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2004-040-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    5. Cuneyt Orman & Bulent Koksal, 2015. "Structure of Debt Maturity across Firm Types," Working Papers 1521, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.
    6. Houston, Joel F. & Venkataraman, S., 1996. "Liquidation under moral hazard: Optimal debt maturity and loan commitments," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 115-133, January.
    7. Maria do Rosario Correia & Scott C. Linn & Andrew Marshall, 2004. "An Empirical Investigation of Debt Contract Design: The Determinants of the Choice of Debt Terms in Eurobond Issues," FEP Working Papers 148, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    8. O. Emre Ergungor & Stephan D. Whitaker, 2016. "Premium Municipal Bonds and Issuer Fiscal Distress," Working Papers (Old Series) 1534, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    9. Kachkach, Islam & Uchida, Hirofumi, 2022. "Bank–firm relationship and loan maturity: Evidence from Japanese SMEs," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    10. Stephan, Andreas & Talavera, Oleksandr & Tsapin, Andriy, 2011. "Corporate debt maturity choice in emerging financial markets," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 141-151, May.
    11. Kurt Hess & Abeyratna Gunasekarage & Martin Hovey, 2010. "State‐dominant and non‐state‐dominant ownership concentration and firm performance," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 6(4), pages 264-289, September.
    12. João Pinto & Mário Coutinho dos Santos, 2014. "Corporate Financing Choices after the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 03, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    13. Michelle J. White, 2005. "Economic Analysis of Corporate and Personal Bankruptcy Law," NBER Working Papers 11536, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Deesomsak, Rataporn & Paudyal, Krishna & Pescetto, Gioia, 2009. "Debt maturity structure and the 1997 Asian financial crisis," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 26-42, February.
    15. Chala, Alemu Tulu, 2018. "Refinancing Risk and Debt Maturity Choice during a Financial Crisis," Working Papers 2018:33, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    16. Byun, Seong K. & Lin, Zhilu & Wei, Siqi, 2021. "Are U.S. firms using more short-term debt?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    17. Efraim Benmelech & Nittai K. Bergman, 2008. "Liquidation Values and the Credibility of Financial Contract Renegotiation: Evidence from U.S. Airlines," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(4), pages 1635-1677.
    18. Bergman, Yaacov & Callen, Jeffrey L., 1995. "Rational deviations from absolute priority rules," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 1-18.
    19. Paseda, Oluseun & Olowe, Rufus, 2018. "The Debt Maturity Structure of Nigerian Quoted Firms," MPRA Paper 117061, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Jun 2018.
    20. Curtiss, Jarmila, 2012. "Determinants of Financial Capital Use: Review of theories and implications for rural businesses," Factor Markets Working Papers 123, Centre for European Policy Studies.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:2:y:1993:i:4:p:531-65. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/journals/JEMS/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.