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The main objective of this study is to examine whether firms follow the financing hierarchy as suggested by the Pecking Order Theory (POT). The External Funds Needed (EFN) model offers a financing hierarchy that can be used for examining the POT. As far as the EFN considers growth of sales as a driver for changing capital structure, it follows that shall firms plan for a sustainable growth of sales, a sustainable financing can be reached and maintained. This study uses data about the firms listed in two indexes: Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA30) and NASDAQ100. The data cover quarterly periods from June 30, 1999, to March 31, 2012. The methodology includes (a) cointegration analysis in order to test for model specification and (b) causality analysis in order to show the generic and mutual associations between the components of EFN. The results conclude that (a) in the majority of the cases, firms plan for an increase in growth sales but not necessarily to approach sustainable rate; (b) in cases of observed and sustainable growth of sales, firms reduce debt financing persistently; (c) firms use equity financing to finance sustainable growth of sales in the long run only, while in the short run, firms use internal financing, that is, retained earnings as a flexible source of financing; and (d) the EFN model is quite useful for examining the hierarchy of financing. This study contributes to the related literature in terms of utilizing the properties of the EFN model in order to examine the practical aspects of the POT. These practical considerations are extended to examine the use of the POT in cases of observed and sustainable growth rates. The findings contribute to the current literature that there is a need to offer an adjustment to the financing order suggested by the POT. Equity financing is the first source of financing current and sustainable growth of sales, followed by retained earnings, and debt financing is the last resort.

Sees the objective of teaching financial management to be to help managers and potential managers to make sensible investment and financing decisions. Acknowledges that financial theory teaches that investment and financing decisions should be based on cash flow and risk. Provides information on payback period; return on capital employed, earnings per share effect, working capital, profit planning, standard costing, financial statement planning and ratio analysis. Seeks to combine the practical rules of thumb of the traditionalists with the ideas of the financial theorists to form a balanced approach to practical financial management for MBA students, financial managers and undergraduates.

Aimed at senior corporate real estate decision makers and members of the corporate finance teams responsible for real estate portfolio strategy, this paper helps these professionals to identify opportunities for different types of lease finance. Readers will go through a brief history of the sale‐leaseback market and learn the factors which determine sale‐leaseback pricing. In addition, they will ascertain how recent changes in the debt markets impact their rental rates, as well as how changes in the equity markets have added a new supply of funds and lowered finance costs. Tenants will obtain a better understanding of the concerns, interests and motivations from a lessor’s perspective, as well as the factors they should consider when deciding whether to own or lease their real estate. This understanding of the lessor should enhance the corporate professional’s negotiating skills. Overall, the contents of this paper should help improve communication between the corporate finance team and the corporate real estate team as each understands better the other’s concerns and perspective on real estate.

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of debt policy (capital structure) on the financial performance of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana and South Africa. Previous studies, especially on large firms, have shown that capital structure affects firm performance. Though the issue has been widely studied, largely missing from this body of literature is the focus on SMEs.

Panel data analysis is used to investigate the relations between measures of capital structure and financial performance.

Using various measures of performance, the results of this study indicate that capital structure influences financial performance, although not exclusively. By and large, the results indicate that capital structure, especially long‐term and total debt ratios, negatively affect performance of SMEs. This suggests that agency issues may lead to SMEs pursuing very high debt policy, thus resulting in lower performance.

The main value of this paper is the analysis of the effect of debt policy on the performance of SMEs in Ghana and South Africa.

This paper aims to compare and contrast the concept of conventional futures contract from the Islamic law of contract perspectives. The underlying theory and practice of Islamic finance is based on the principles of Islamic law of contract. Although the necessity of derivative instruments such as the case with futures contract is essential for developments in Islamic finance, the permissibility of using these instruments still remains a debatable issue.

The paper discusses arguments for and against using derivative instruments as in futures, for example, in light with the Qur’an and Sunnah (the Prophet’s traditions), as well as the views of classical scholars, jurists and contemporary researchers. Arguments for and against are analysed systematically to derive a logical conclusion.

The study finds that majority scholars consider futures contracts as non-compliant with the Islamic law due to the fact that selling something that does not exist, deferment in the both counter values, gharar or ambiguity and excessive risk taking, pure speculation and sale of one debt for another.

The study focuses narrowly on conventional futures contract. Analysing other financial derivative contracts could be a future research endeavour.

The study has so far found the verdict of impermissibility of conventional futures contract in its current form as has been argued by majority scholars in the premise that they do not comply with the Islamic law. Policymakers and industry practitioners need to take this opinion of majority scholars while developing new Islamic financial derivatives.

To the best of the author's knowledge, the present research is the first attempt so far that explained the validity of conventional futures by analysing arguments of classical and contemporary jurists, scholars and researchers.

A debt defeasance arrangement is an arrangement whereby a debtor’s obligation to pay a creditor is nullified. The debtor and other parties perform a variety of legal and other actions in order to effect a valid debt defeasance arrangement. One of the actions that should be taken by the debtor is to pay an amount to a third party who takes over the obligation to pay the debt. The money received by the third party is referred to as a debt defeasance receipt. Debt defeasance arrangements are used in countries such as the United States of America and Australia. The financial community in South Africa is becoming increasingly interested in the debt defeasance arrangement. As South Africa is becoming part of the global community, more foreign companies are doing business in South Africa. Because it is a relatively unfamiliar arrangement, that has not yet been addressed by the South African taxation authorities, there are probably a number of unanswered tax questions regarding the arrangement. One issue that is not yet clear is what the source of a debt defeasance receipt would be if it were to be received by a non‐resident in South Africa. A survey was done among South African banks, auditing firms and taxation senior counsel to determine the majority opinion of South African respondents regarding the source of a debt defeasance receipt. Although a variety of alternatives are identified as possible sources, the majority view is that the source is the debt defeasance business activities that are conducted by the recipient. It therefore follows that if the recipient of a debt defeasance receipt conducted his or her debt defeasance business activities in South Africa, the receipt will be of a South African source.

An examination of insider trading before and after the announcement of Credit Watch placements sheds new light on the study of both bond rating changes and insider trading. This paper utilizes Credit Watch placements classified by 11 indentifiable trigger events for the years 1981‐1990. We find significant insider purchases before positive implication placements, but no sales before negative implication placements. Among individual trigger events, we observe significant insider purchases before and after placements due to improved operating performance, bidding on a firm with a higher debt rating and firms increasing their debt‐to‐equity ratios. Significant insider purchases are found before placements due to purchasing assets. Significant insider sales are found before and after placements due to poor operating performance.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a linkage between two rarely researched areas, i.e. earnings quality (EQ) and access to external and internal debt financing. Specifically, the authors aim to examine whether the quality of a firm’s reported earnings is significantly associated with its access to both private and bank debt financing.

The authors test the hypotheses by employing panel data analysis for a sample of 108 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) during 2006-2015. The tests were conducted by using R econometric software.

After controlling for some firm-specific factors and consistent with the primary expectations, the results reveal a significant and positive relationship between EQ and managerial access to external (bank) debt financing. In addition, the findings indicate that EQ is negatively associated with internal debt financing which is measured as the changes in firm retained earnings.

Although the authors cautiously conducted the present study, there are some limitations that merit further consideration. First, the authors collected the data manually from 14 categories of industries in the TSE and, accordingly, an aggregate analysis across multiple categories of industries might have missed industry-specific and unique issues. Second, the authors used a narrow conceptualization of accruals quality which merely assesses a firm’s EQ. The measures can be enhanced by including more actionable proxies. Third, since the data on debt financing were collected from two different sources, this might have caused common method variance in the results procedurally.

Since the fundamental institutional assumptions underpinning the Western and even East Asia debt contracting and EQ models are not valid in the institutional environment of Iran, the findings could provide substantial implications for the understanding of both debt financing and the quality of earnings. These significant institutional and ownership differences are the factors affecting firms’ leverage and capital choice decisions. Indeed, the study has laid some groundwork upon which a more detailed evaluation of the Iranian firms’ financial structure could be based.

Illustrates how terms of sale can influence demand for a firm's products and how a firm can model the best combination of credit policy variables. Analyses the results of a credit policy questionnaire designed specifically for sales respondents. Shows how credit policy produces organizational conflict and suboptimization when separated from the sales or marketing functions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of bank concentration on firm financial constraints to perform investment across two types of financial constraints firms.

The authors analyse this relationship by estimating the investment‐cash flow sensitivity across groups of firms classified according to debt maturity structure model. The firms were classified as short‐term and long‐term debt dependent firms. Empirically the authors analyze a sample that consists of the most recent dataset (over 2001‐2009) of UK firms that engage in foreign direct investment by using fixed‐effects and GMM‐IV estimation techniques.

Bank concentration was found to relax financial constraints on firm level investment. Results indicate that higher level financial constraints are associated with short‐term debt dependent firms that exhibit high level of investment‐cash flow sensitivity. Further, it was found that bank concentration is associated with reduction in financial constraints on firm investment and this effect is stronger for short‐term debt dependent firms.

Unlike previous studies, the paper investigates the bank concentration effects on UK foreign direct investing firms that are uniquely classified; based on distinctive dimension of financial frictions in capital market. Estimated results ascertain that information‐based hypothesis is pertinent to the UK capital market.