We examine the determinants of debt maturity in the Australian capital market with the Top 400 firms listed on the Australian Securities Exchange for the period 1989 to 2006. We find that Australian firms not only exhibit a positive leverage-maturity relationship but also use short-term debt to...

Corporate debt maturity is a concave function of financial leverage when the debt has restrictive asset-based covenants attached. This concavity kicks in earlier with increasing covenant tightness and is absent when firms have no restrictive asset-based covenants. We argue that this concavity is...