IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v142y2022ics0378426622001406.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Blockholder board representation and debt contracting

Author

Listed:
  • Marquardt, Blair B.
  • Sanchez, Juan Manuel

Abstract

We examine the impact of blockholder board representation on a borrower's bank loan contract terms and find it is associated with lower spreads and fewer negative covenants. When examining the potential channels behind the relationship, we find that blockholder-directors who take dedicated monitoring roles, as opposed to the short-term or confrontational positions often associated with activist shareholders, drive the overall relationship. The findings, which are robust to alternative model specifications and explanations, suggest that blockholder-directors can serve as substitute monitors to debtholders when their incentives are aligned. The results also highlight the heterogeneity among blockholders who actively influence the management process.

Suggested Citation

  • Marquardt, Blair B. & Sanchez, Juan Manuel, 2022. "Blockholder board representation and debt contracting," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:142:y:2022:i:c:s0378426622001406
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2022.106546
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426622001406
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2022.106546?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Graham, John R. & Li, Si & Qiu, Jiaping, 2008. "Corporate misreporting and bank loan contracting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 44-61, July.
    2. Hainmueller, Jens, 2012. "Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, January.
    3. Victoria Ivashina & Boris Vallee, 2020. "Weak Credit Covenants," NBER Working Papers 27316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Enrichetta Ravina & Paola Sapienza, 2010. "What Do Independent Directors Know? Evidence from Their Trading," NBER Chapters, in: Corporate Governance, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Anderson, Ronald C. & Mansi, Sattar A. & Reeb, David M., 2003. "Founding family ownership and the agency cost of debt," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 263-285, May.
    6. Anup Agrawal & Tareque Nasser, 2018. "Corporate Financial and Investment Policies in the Presence of a Blockholder on the Board," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 8(03), pages 1-59, September.
    7. Yiwei Dou & Ole-Kristian Hope & Wayne B. Thomas & Youli Zou, 2016. "Individual Large Shareholders, Earnings Management, and Capital-Market Consequences," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(7-8), pages 872-902, July.
    8. Ian D. Gow & David F. Larcker & Peter C. Reiss, 2016. "Causal Inference in Accounting Research," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 477-523, May.
    9. Gilson, Stuart C., 1990. "Bankruptcy, boards, banks, and blockholders : Evidence on changes in corporate ownership and control when firms default," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 355-387, October.
    10. Narayanan, Rajesh & Uzmanoglu, Cihan, 2018. "Credit Default Swaps and Firm Value," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 1227-1259, June.
    11. Dlugosz, Jennifer & Fahlenbrach, Rudiger & Gompers, Paul & Metrick, Andrew, 2006. "Large blocks of stock: Prevalence, size, and measurement," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 594-618, June.
    12. Ran Xu & Kenneth A. Frank & Spiro J. Maroulis & Joshua M. Rosenberg, 2019. "konfound: Command to quantify robustness of causal inferences," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 19(3), pages 523-550, September.
    13. Mark Kroll & Bruce A. Walters & Peter Wright, 2008. "Board vigilance, director experience, and corporate outcomes," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 363-382, April.
    14. Wei Jiang & Kai Li & Pei Shao, 2010. "When Shareholders Are Creditors: Effects of the Simultaneous Holding of Equity and Debt by Non-commercial Banking Institutions," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(10), pages 3595-3637, October.
    15. Hans B. Christensen & Valeri V. Nikolaev & Regina Wittenberg‐Moerman, 2016. "Accounting Information in Financial Contracting: The Incomplete Contract Theory Perspective," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 397-435, May.
    16. Klein, April, 1998. "Firm Performance and Board Committee Structure," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 275-303, April.
    17. Zhang, Xinde & Zhou, Simiao, 2018. "Bond covenants and institutional blockholding," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 136-152.
    18. Divya Anantharaman & Vivian W. Fang & Guojin Gong, 2014. "Inside Debt and the Design of Corporate Debt Contracts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(5), pages 1260-1280, May.
    19. Sudheer Chava & Michael R. Roberts, 2008. "How Does Financing Impact Investment? The Role of Debt Covenants," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(5), pages 2085-2121, October.
    20. Sualihu, Mohammed Aminu & Rankin, Michaela & Haman, Janto, 2021. "The role of equity compensation in reducing inefficient investment in labor," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    21. Jiang, George J. & Liu, Chang, 2021. "Getting on board: The monitoring effect of institutional directors," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    22. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Brav, Alon & Jiang, Wei & Keusch, Thomas, 2020. "Dancing with activists," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 1-41.
    23. Anderson, Ronald C. & Mansi, Sattar A. & Reeb, David M., 2004. "Board characteristics, accounting report integrity, and the cost of debt," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 315-342, September.
    24. Brian J. Bushee, 2001. "Do Institutional Investors Prefer Near†Term Earnings over Long†Run Value?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(2), pages 207-246, June.
    25. Philippe Aghion & Patrick Bolton, 1992. "An Incomplete Contracts Approach to Financial Contracting," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(3), pages 473-494.
    26. Gow, Ian D. & Larcker, David F. & Reiss, Peter C., 2016. "Causal Inference in Accounting Research," Research Papers 3393, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    27. Swanson, Edward P. & Young, Glen M. & Yust, Christopher G., 2022. "Are all activists created equal? The effect of interventions by hedge funds and other private activists on long-term shareholder value," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    28. April Klein & Emanuel Zur, 2011. "The Impact of Hedge Fund Activism on the Target Firm's Existing Bondholders," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(5), pages 1735-1771.
    29. Konijn, Sander J.J. & Kräussl, Roman & Lucas, Andre, 2011. "Blockholder dispersion and firm value," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 1330-1339.
    30. Scott Liao, 2015. "Outside Blockholders' Monitoring of Management and Debt Financing," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(4), pages 1373-1404, December.
    31. David Godsell & Michael Welker & Ning Zhang, 2017. "Earnings Management During Antidumping Investigations in Europe: Sample‐Wide and Cross‐Sectional Evidence," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 407-457, May.
    32. Paige Fields, L. & Fraser, Donald R. & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2012. "Board quality and the cost of debt capital: The case of bank loans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1536-1547.
    33. Clifford G. Holderness, 2009. "The Myth of Diffuse Ownership in the United States," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 1377-1408, April.
    34. Henrik Cronqvist & Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, 2009. "Large Shareholders and Corporate Policies," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(10), pages 3941-3976, October.
    35. K.J. Martijn Cremers & Vinay B. Nair & Chenyang Wei, 2007. "Governance Mechanisms and Bond Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1359-1388, 2007 07.
    36. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2001. "Are CEOs Rewarded for Luck? The Ones Without Principals Are," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 901-932.
    37. Larcker, David F. & Rusticus, Tjomme O., 2010. "On the use of instrumental variables in accounting research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 186-205, April.
    38. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1986. "Large Shareholders and Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 461-488, June.
    39. Vyacheslav Fos, 2017. "The Disciplinary Effects of Proxy Contests," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 655-671, March.
    40. Berger, Philip G & Ofek, Eli & Yermack, David L, 1997. "Managerial Entrenchment and Capital Structure Decisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1411-1438, September.
    41. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    42. April Klein & Emanuel Zur, 2009. "Entrepreneurial Shareholder Activism: Hedge Funds and Other Private Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 187-229, February.
    43. Hans B. Christensen & Valeri V. Nikolaev, 2012. "Capital Versus Performance Covenants in Debt Contracts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 75-116, March.
    44. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    45. Anup Agrawal & Tareque Nasser, 2019. "Blockholders on Boards and CEO Compensation, Turnover and Firm Valuation," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 9(03), pages 1-67, September.
    46. Dahiya, Sandeep & Hallak, Issam & Matthys, Thomas, 2020. "Targeted by an activist hedge fund, do the lenders care?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    47. Sudheer Chava & Dmitry Livdan & Amiyatosh Purnanandam, 2009. "Do Shareholder Rights Affect the Cost of Bank Loans?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(8), pages 2973-3004, August.
    48. Peter R. Demerjian, 2017. "Uncertainty and debt covenants," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1156-1197, September.
    49. Chen, Victor Zitian & Hobdari, Bersant & Zhang, Yilei, 2019. "Blockholder heterogeneity and conflicts in cross-border acquisitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 86-101.
    50. Kothari, S.P. & Leone, Andrew J. & Wasley, Charles E., 2005. "Performance matched discretionary accrual measures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 163-197, February.
    51. Sudheer Chava & Praveen Kumar & Arthur Warga, 2010. "Managerial Agency and Bond Covenants," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(3), pages 1120-1148, March.
    52. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Alon Brav & Wei Jiang, 2015. "The Long-Term Effects of Hedge Fund Activism," NBER Working Papers 21227, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    53. Sanjeev Bhojraj & Partha Sengupta, 2003. "Effect of Corporate Governance on Bond Ratings and Yields: The Role of Institutional Investors and Outside Directors," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(3), pages 455-476, July.
    54. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Yaniv Grinstein & Urs Peyer, 2010. "Lucky CEOs and Lucky Directors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(6), pages 2363-2401, December.
    55. Jayanthi Sunder & Shyam V. Sunder & Wan Wongsunwai, 2014. "Debtholder Responses to Shareholder Activism: Evidence from Hedge Fund Interventions," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(11), pages 3318-3342.
    56. Smith, Clifford Jr. & Warner, Jerold B., 1979. "On financial contracting : An analysis of bond covenants," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 117-161, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Han & Li, Yuan & Xiao, Chenlei & Wang, Xiaoyan, 2024. "Can the deregulation of market access reduce the cost of corporate debt financing: A quasinatural experiment based on the “negative list for market access” pilot project," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    2. Jeffrey A. Chandler & Yeongsu (Anthony) Kim & Jacob A. Waddingham & Aaron D. Hill, 2023. "Going global? CEO political ideology and the choice between international alliances and international acquisitions," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 54(8), pages 1441-1470, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhang, Xinde & Zhou, Simiao, 2018. "Bond covenants and institutional blockholding," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 136-152.
    2. Jordan Schoenfeld, 2020. "Contracts Between Firms and Shareholders," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 383-427, May.
    3. Nguyen, Phuong L. & Galpin, Neal & Twite, Garry, 2022. "New active blockholders and adjustment of CEO relative incentive ratios," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    4. Liu, Yukun & Wu, Xi, 2023. "How does shareholder governance affect the cost of borrowing? Evidence from the passage of anti-takeover provisions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2).
    5. Rahaman, Mohammad M. & Zaman, Ashraf Al, 2013. "Management quality and the cost of debt: Does management matter to lenders?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 854-874.
    6. Driss, Hamdi & Drobetz, Wolfgang & El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane, 2021. "Institutional investment horizons, corporate governance, and credit ratings: International evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    7. Naeem Tabassum & Satwinder Singh, 2020. "Corporate Governance and Organisational Performance," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-48527-6, January.
    8. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Guay, Wayne R. & Weber, Joseph P., 2010. "The role of information and financial reporting in corporate governance and debt contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 179-234, December.
    9. Björn Imbierowicz & Daniel Streitz, 2024. "Financial debt contracting and managerial agency problems," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 99-118, March.
    10. Lim, Jesslyn & Do, Viet & Vu, Tram, 2022. "The effect of lenders’ dual holding on loan contract design: Evidence from performance pricing provisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    11. Peter Demerjian & John Donovan & Melissa F. Lewis‐Western, 2020. "Income Smoothing and the Usefulness of Earnings for Monitoring in Debt Contracting," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(2), pages 857-884, June.
    12. Lin, Steve & Sawani, Assma & Wang, Changjiang, 2023. "Managerial stock ownership, debt covenants, and the cost of debt," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Lin, Chih-Yung & Chen, Yan-Shing & Yen, Ju-Fang, 2014. "On the determinant of bank loan contracts: The roles of borrowers’ ownership and board structures," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 500-512.
    14. Chia-Ying Chan & Iftekhar Hasan & Chih-Yung Lin, 2021. "Agency cost of CEO perquisites in bank loan contracts," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1221-1258, May.
    15. Chy, Mahfuz & Kyung, Hoyoun, 2023. "The effect of bond market transparency on bank loan contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2).
    16. Kim, Hyun-Dong & Kim, Yura & Mantecon, Tomas & Song, Kyojik Roy, 2019. "Short-term institutional investors and agency costs of debt," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 195-210.
    17. Daniel Cohen & Bin Li & Ningzhong Li & Yun Lou, 2022. "Major government customers and loan contract terms," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 275-312, March.
    18. Ju-Fang Yen & Chih-Yung Lin & Yan-Shing Chen & Ying-Chen Huang, 2015. "Founding Family Firms and Bank Loan Contracts," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 53-82, August.
    19. Takuma Kochiyama & Ryosuke Nakamura, 2021. "Debt covenants in Japanese loan markets: in comparison with the traditional relationship banking," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(1), pages 305-334, March.
    20. Shazia, Farhan, 2024. "Crime and covenants," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Blockholders; Cost of debt; Debt covenants; Shareholder activism; Board composition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:142:y:2022:i:c:s0378426622001406. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.