公司舉債對其現金流量之敏感性分析

Abstract

本論文以融資順位理論為基礎，討論台灣上市公司舉債行為對其資金缺口的敏感性。過去的研究多以所有外部資金需求的總和作為解釋變數，並討論公司使用多少負債對應其所面臨的資金缺口，本研究則將資金缺口依來源或目的分為營運現金流量、投資現金流量、當期須償還之長期負債與現金股利四項，嘗試研究公司面對不同的資金需來源是否有不同的融資行為。本研究更進一步討論前、後期之現金流量是否亦會對公司當期的舉債行為造成影響，並以多項財務指標分類樣本以探討公司的特性與經營狀況是否影響其舉債的偏好，研究內容係以西元1991年至2016年的台灣非金融業上市公司為樣本，針對各公司每年度的淨負債發行額以各項資金缺口做迴歸分析。其實證結果顯示，公司較傾向於繼續舉債填補到期債務造成的缺口，針對投資需要的舉債傾向為其次，為發放現金股利而舉債的比例則最低。公司亦有利用前期的內部資金剩餘填補當年度資金缺口的表現，也顯著會為了隔年度將到期的債務預先舉債，但主要的影響力仍來自當年度的資金需求。分組樣本分析部分，本研究使用虛擬變數區隔財務指標表現不同的樣本以判斷各個指標是否顯著影響模型的迴歸係數，其結果顯示，高資金缺口的公司以負債填補缺口的比例較低、高資產規模的公司有較高的舉債偏好、高獲利能力的公司使用營運收入替代負債的傾向較強、獲利能力穩健的公司較不會事先為將到期的債務籌資、公司持有的現金部位確實有抵減負債的用途、而公司的成長性則不顯著影響舉債偏好。

This study is based on the pecking order theory stated by Myers and Majluf (1984). Employing the data of Taiwanese non-financial, public trading companies from 1991 to 2016, companies’ yearly net debt issuance will be regressed on four kinds of cash flow in year: cash flow from operating activities, cash flow from investing activities, current portion of long-term debt and cash dividend payment. The empirical result shows that each kind of four cash flows has different influence on debt financing. It also shows that companies have trend to retain last year’s earning for future payment, and constantly issue new debt to cover large portion of incoming debt duties. In the final part of this study, it discusses the influence of firm’s characteristics to its debt funding preference. The result shows that: 1. Firms with large financial deficits have relatively low debt issuance sensitivity to cash flow. 2. Large size firms have stronger preference on debt funding than small size firms. 3. Higher the firm’s profitability, stronger the substitution effect on operating cash flow to debt issuance. 4. Firms with stable profitability have relatively low need to issue debt for next year’s current debt duties. 5. Companies with large portion of cash retained on hand have relatively low need to issue debt. 6. The PBR index barely makes difference on firm’s debt funding preference.