We apply control rights theory to explain the structure and determinants of financial covenants in private equity backed leveraged buyouts. We analyze 130 German transactions from 2000 to 2008, covering about 40 percent of the LBO market during this period. We consider Germany to be a superior...

The corporate governance literature has shown that self-interested controlling owners tend to divert corporate resources for private benefits at the expense of other shareholders. Such behavior leads the controlling owners to prefer long maturity debt to short maturity debt, to avoid frequent...

This research investigates the relationship between corporate block ownership and firm financial leverage. Corporate blockholders, which are nonfinancial firms who hold more than five percent equity in a target industrial firm, can affect the target firm's policies through their business...

This paper examines the use of governance and incentive mechanisms beyond loan contract provisions that borrowers use to reduce contracting costs with lenders. We show that as the strength of the relationship between a borrower and a lender intensifies over time, borrowing firms are more likely...

I explore the effect of the threat posed by low-cost competitors on debt structure in the airline industry. I use the route network expansion of low-cost airlines to identify routes where the probability of future entry increase dramatically. I find that when a large portion of their market is...

This paper investigates the effect of investment opportunities, audit quality and debt maturity on the interest paid by all-equity firms. Debt holders are likely to charge higher interest to price-protect themselves because of the under-investment and asset substitution problems. All-equity...

This paper analyzes the effect of corporate debt offerings on stock prices. Straight debt offerings have non-positive price effects, while convertible debt offerings have significantly negative effects. Public utility mortgage (non-convertible) bond offerings have marginally negative effects,...

We study a novel aspect of a firm's capital structure, namely the profile of its debt maturity dates. In a simple theoretical framework we show that the dispersion of debt maturities constitutes an important dimension of capital structure choice, driven by firm characteristics and debt rollover...

Firms reduce investment to avoid costly violations of financial covenants, most of which are based on earnings. Empirically, I show that a 25% drop in earnings implies a 15% decrease in investment for the median listed US firm due to the reduced distance to the covenant threshold. To quantify...