IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/corfin/v24y2014icp21-37.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Convertible debt and investment timing

Author

Listed:
  • Lyandres, Evgeny
  • Zhdanov, Alexei

Abstract

In this paper we provide an investment-based explanation for the popularity of convertible debt. Specifically, we demonstrate the ability of convertible debt to alleviate and potentially totally eliminate the underinvestment problem of Myers (1977). A conversion feature induces shareholders to accelerate investment. This effect arises from the incentive of equity holders to accelerate the issuance of new equity, used to finance investment, since by investing early shareholders dilute the value of convertible debt holders by reducing their proportional claims to the firm's cash flows. Since the underinvestment effect and the accelerated investment effect work in opposite directions, convertible debt allows to mitigate or completely eliminate the debt overhang problem. In addition, we show that by choosing the right combination of straight debt and convertible debt, shareholders can, for a wide range of overall debt levels, commit to the investment strategy of an all-equity firm.

Suggested Citation

  • Lyandres, Evgeny & Zhdanov, Alexei, 2014. "Convertible debt and investment timing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 21-37.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:24:y:2014:i:c:p:21-37
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2013.06.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929119913000564
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2013.06.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stein, Jeremy C., 1992. "Convertible bonds as backdoor equity financing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 3-21, August.
    2. Dorion, Christian & François, Pascal & Grass, Gunnar & Jeanneret, Alexandre, 2014. "Convertible debt and shareholder incentives," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 38-56.
    3. Green, Richard C., 1984. "Investment incentives, debt, and warrants," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 115-136, March.
    4. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    5. Brennan, Michael J & Kraus, Alan, 1987. "Efficient Financing under Asymmetric Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(5), pages 1225-1243, December.
    6. Lewis, Craig M. & Rogalski, Richard J. & Seward, James K., 2001. "The long-run performance of firms that issue convertible debt: an empirical analysis of operating characteristics and analyst forecasts," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 447-474, December.
    7. Craig M. Lewis & Richard J. Rogalski & James K. Seward, 1999. "Is Convertible Debt a Substitute for Straight Debt or for Common Equity?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 28(3), Fall.
    8. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    9. Robert McDonald & Daniel Siegel, 1986. "The Value of Waiting to Invest," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(4), pages 707-727.
    10. Francesca Cornelli & Oved Yosha, 2003. "Stage Financing and the Role of Convertible Securities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(1), pages 1-32.
    11. Lewis, Craig M. & Rogalski, Richard J. & Seward, James K., 1998. "Agency Problems, Information Asymmetries, and Convertible Debt Security Design," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 32-59, January.
    12. Lewis, Craig M. & Veld, Chris, 2014. "Convertible bond financing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 1-2.
    13. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    14. Constantinides, George M., 1984. "Warrant exercise and bond conversion in competitive markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 371-397, September.
    15. Brennan, M J & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 1977. "Convertible Bonds: Valuation and Optimal Strategies for Call and Conversion," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(5), pages 1699-1715, December.
    16. Egami, Masahiko, 2010. "A game options approach to the investment problem with convertible debt financing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1456-1470, August.
    17. Christian Dorion & Pascal François & Gunnar Grass & Alexandre Jeanneret, 2014. "Convertible Debt and Shareholder Incentives," Cahiers de recherche 1403, CIRPEE.
    18. Morellec, Erwan & Schürhoff, Norman, 2011. "Corporate investment and financing under asymmetric information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 262-288, February.
    19. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:1:p:391-405 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Dutordoir, Marie & Lewis, Craig & Seward, James & Veld, Chris, 2014. "What we do and do not know about convertible bond financing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 3-20.
    21. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    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. Feng, Yun & Huang, Bing-hua & Huang, Yu, 2016. "Valuing resettable convertible bonds: Based on path decomposing," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 279-290.
    2. Lu, Jin-Ray & Hwang, Chih-Chiang & Lin, Chien-Yi, 2016. "Do shareholders appreciate capital investment policies of corporations?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 344-353.
    3. Dandan Song & Zhaojun Yang, 2016. "Contingent Capital, Real Options, and Agency Costs," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 3-40, March.
    4. Dutordoir, Marie & Lewis, Craig & Seward, James & Veld, Chris, 2014. "What we do and do not know about convertible bond financing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 3-20.
    5. Luo, Pengfei & Song, Dandan & Chen, Biao, 2020. "Investment and financing for SMEs with bank-tax interaction and public-private partnerships," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 163-172.
    6. Juan David González-Ruiz & Maria Isabel Acosta-García & Ramón Villa-García, 2021. "Financial Behaviour in a Mandatory Conversion Process: Empirical Evidence from Colombia," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 22(1), pages 69-84, February.
    7. Lewis, Craig M. & Veld, Chris, 2014. "Convertible bond financing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 1-2.
    8. Luo, Pengfei & Yang, Zhaojun, 2017. "Real options and contingent convertibles with regime switching," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 122-135.
    9. Shibata, Takashi & Nishihara, Michi, 2015. "Investment-based financing constraints and debt renegotiation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 79-92.
    10. Rastad, Mahdi, 2016. "Capital structure pre-balancing: Evidence from convertible bonds," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 43-65.
    11. Dorion, Christian & François, Pascal & Grass, Gunnar & Jeanneret, Alexandre, 2014. "Convertible debt and shareholder incentives," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 38-56.
    12. Guthrie, Graeme, 2024. "Farm debt and the over-exploitation of natural capital," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Gan, Liu & Xia, Xin & Xu, Wenyang & Zhang, Hai, 2024. "Convertible bond maturity and debt overhang," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PB).
    14. Pengfei Luo & Zhaojun Yang, 2021. "Investment and financing for cash flow discounted with group diversity," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 769-785, September.
    15. Tan, Yingxian & Luo, Pengfei, 2021. "The impact of debt restructuring on dynamic investment and financing policies," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    16. Dutordoir, Marie & Pappas, Kostas & Xu, Alice Liang & Zeng, Cheng (Colin), 2023. "Covenants in convertible bonds: Boon or boilerplate?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    17. Batten, Jonathan A. & Khaw, Karren Lee-Hwei & Young, Martin R., 2021. "Convertible debt and asset substitution of multinational corporations," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    18. Dutordoir, Marie & Strong, Norman & Ziegan, Marius C., 2014. "Does corporate governance influence convertible bond issuance?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 80-100.
    19. Basak, Suleyman & Makarov, Dmitry & Shapiro, Alex & Subrahmanyam, Marti, 2020. "Security design with status concerns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    20. Yongsik Kim, 2020. "Announcement Effects of Convertible and Warrant Bond Issues with Embedded Refixing Option: Evidence from Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-21, October.
    21. Tan, Yingxian & Yang, Zhaojun, 2017. "Growth option, contingent capital and agency conflicts," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 354-369.
    22. Gan, Liu & Xia, Xin & Zhang, Hai, 2022. "Debt structure and debt overhang," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    23. Ling, Yu-Xiu & Xie, Chi & Wang, Gang-Jin, 2022. "Interconnectedness between convertible bonds and underlying stocks in the Chinese capital market: A multilayer network perspective," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    24. Flor, Christian Riis & Petersen, Kirstine Boye & Schandlbauer, Alexander, 2023. "Callable or convertible debt? The role of debt overhang and covenants," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    25. Elettra Agliardi & Rossella Agliardi & Willem Spanjers, 2015. "Convertible Debt: Financing Decisions and Voluntary Conversion under Ambiguity," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 15(4), pages 599-611, December.

    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. Dutordoir, Marie & Strong, Norman & Ziegan, Marius C., 2014. "Does corporate governance influence convertible bond issuance?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 80-100.
    2. Dong, Ming & Dutordoir, Marie & Veld, Chris, 2019. "How can we improve inferences from surveys? A new look at the convertible debt questions from the Graham and Harvey survey data," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 213-222.
    3. Dutordoir, Marie & Pappas, Kostas & Xu, Alice Liang & Zeng, Cheng (Colin), 2023. "Covenants in convertible bonds: Boon or boilerplate?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Burlacu, Radu & Jimenez-Garcès, Sonia, 2022. "Why do firms issue callable convertible bonds? A critique of the “backdoor equity financing” theory," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    5. Dutordoir, Marie & Lewis, Craig & Seward, James & Veld, Chris, 2014. "What we do and do not know about convertible bond financing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 3-20.
    6. Thomas J. Chemmanur & Karen Simonyan, 2010. "What Drives the Issuance of Putable Convertibles: Risk‐Shifting, Asymmetric Information, or Taxes?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 1027-1068, September.
    7. Angel Huerga & Carlos Rodríguez-Monroy, 2019. "Mandatory Convertible Bonds and the Agency Problem," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-21, July.
    8. Batten, Jonathan A. & Khaw, Karren Lee-Hwei & Young, Martin R., 2021. "Convertible debt and asset substitution of multinational corporations," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    9. Chang, Shao-Chi & Chen, Sheng-Syan & Liu, Yichen, 2004. "Why firms use convertibles: A further test of the sequential-financing hypothesis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 1163-1183, May.
    10. Christian Dorion & Pascal François & Gunnar Grass & Alexandre Jeanneret, 2014. "Convertible Debt and Shareholder Incentives," Cahiers de recherche 1403, CIRPEE.
    11. Mohamed, Hisham Hanifa & Masih, Mansur & Bacha, Obiyathulla I., 2015. "Why do issuers issue Sukuk or conventional bond? Evidence from Malaysian listed firms using partial adjustment models," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 233-252.
    12. Akdoğu, Evrim & Alp Paukowits, Aysun & Celikyurt, Ugur, 2020. "The relationship of G-Index and convertible debt issuance in the presence of restrictive covenants," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 373-390.
    13. Liao, Yulu & Huang, Paoyu & Ni, Yensen, 2022. "Convertible bond issuance volume, capital structure, and firm value," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    14. Hanifa, Mohamed Hisham & Masih, Mansur & Bacha, Obiyathulla, 2014. "Testing Sukuk And Conventional Bond Offers Based On Corporate Financing Theories Using Partial Adjustment Models: Evidence From Malaysian Listed Firms," MPRA Paper 56953, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Florence Andre-Le Pogamp & Khalid El Badraoui, 2013. "Security Design of Callable Convertible Bonds and Issuers' External Financing Costs," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 56(1), pages 61-81.
    16. Dorion, Christian & François, Pascal & Grass, Gunnar & Jeanneret, Alexandre, 2014. "Convertible debt and shareholder incentives," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 38-56.
    17. Ortiz-Molina, Hernan, 2007. "Executive compensation and capital structure: The effects of convertible debt and straight debt on CEO pay," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 69-93, March.
    18. Wolfgang Drobetz & Matthias C. Grüninger & Claudia B. Wöhle, 2006. "Warum begeben Unternehmen Wandelanleihen?," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 142(III), pages 331-365, September.
    19. Krishnaswami, Sudha & Yaman, Devrim, 2008. "The role of convertible bonds in alleviating contracting costs," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 792-816, November.
    20. Verwijmeren, Patrick & Yang, Antti, 2020. "The fluctuating maturities of convertible bonds," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Convertible debt; Underinvestment; Dilution; Accelerated investment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    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:eee:corfin:v:24:y:2014:i:c:p:21-37. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcorpfin .

    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.