Authors: George Nikolaou

Title: How does companies' capital structure evolved during the 2008 global financial crisis. A quantitative approach from Athens Stock Exchange listed companies.

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to investigate if the 2008 Global Financial crisis affected firm’s capital structure and to which direction this is affected. Our sample consisted of the ASE Large Cap companies for the period 2004-2016 excluding financial and insurance institutions. For the examination of firm’s capital structure, Long Term Debt to Total Assets (LTDTA) and Total Liabilities to Total Assets (TLTA) were considered as dependent leverage variables. As quantitative independent variables company size, profitability (ROA), company risk (beta), effective tax rate, insolvency ratio and as qualitative variables “Banking Relationship”, and the form of ownership (Family, Government and Institutional) were used.

The sample was divided in three sub-periods, the pro-crisis period of 2004-2008, the period during the crisis 2009-2012 and the after-crisis period 2013-2016 and the reults were compared. Data  analysis revealed as that factors like size are positive affecting all forms of debt during the years. On the contrary, profitability and qualitative factors like “Banking Relationship” and ownership regime have multiple effects both on the forms of debt and in different time periods. Both domestic and international bibliography are introduced and the findings of this research are discussed and compared to the findings of previous researches.