Dividend payout policy, investment opportunity set and corporate financing in the industrial products sector of Malaysia

There are various factors that influence dividend payout policy of corporations; investment opportunity set and corporate financing are among the important ones. Numerous studies have been conducted on the topic of payout policy but less attention is paid on developing countries. In this paper the impact of investment opportunity set and corporate financing on dividend payout policy of Malaysian industrial products sector is investigated. The sample consists of 62 companies which were listed on the main board of Bursa Malaysia. The dependent variable is dividend payout which is measured by dividing dividend per share by earnings per share. On the other hand the independent variables are investment opportunity set and corporate financing. Tobin’s q is used to measure investment opportunity set and financial leverage and debt maturity were used to measure corporate financing. Two proxies of profitability and risk were utilized as the control variables. The results suggest that investment opportunity set and debt maturity are the factors that significantly influence dividend payout policy of the sample firms. In addition, profitability and risk play significant role in determining dividend policy in the industrial products sector of Malaysia. -- dividends ; investment opportunity set ; corporate finance ; emerging markets