An Empirical Analysis On The Impact Of Debt Maturity Structure To Corporate Performance In Listed Companies

The financing environment of the company gets more and more complex along with the growth of the economy, adopting which financing strategy and whether the financing fails or succeeds, this is of vital importance to the company's survival and development. Besides the capital structure, the optimal financing structure also includes the debt financing structure. And the debt maturity is the important content of the debt contract, the choice of the debt maturity structure is an important part of capital structure, also, it's one of the most important policies for the debt financing of the company. At the same time, the difference of the debt maturity structure will influence the time of capital use, the financial cost of the company, the plan of the payback, as well as the governance efficiency of company and corporate performance. However, in the special environment of debt financing, such as the listed companies' unique ownership structure in China, investor protection system is not perfect, the development of capital market is not balanced and corporate governance mechanism does not function fully, the relationship between the debt level and debt maturity structure and corporate performance in Chinese listed companies is more complicated. Therefore, this makes it significant to do research on the influence of the debt maturity structure on corporate performance.The paper is based on the agency cost theory, information asymmetry theory, the asset-maturity matching theory and so on. On the basis of theory and empirical researches about debt maturity structure domestic and foreign, and combining the Chinese's listed companies' realistic status, the paper chooses the A share listed companies in Shanghai before 2003 as samples and chooses their 2006-2008 dates, and choose ROA and ROE to measure corporate performance, then we empirical analyse the relationship between the total debt proportion and the debt maturity structure and corporate performance, finally analyse the results.This paper was divided into five parts, each part is as follows:Chapter 1 is the introduction, summarizing the purpose, significance, methodology and the frame of this paper. Chapter 2 reviews the domestic and foreign theories of the debt maturity structure and corporate performance, and evaluates these literatures. Chapter 3 analyzes theoretically the impact of the debt proportion and debt maturity structure to corporate performance. Chapter 4 is empirical analysis. Aaccording to the agency cost theory, information asymmetry theory, the paper put forward research hypotheses, and using data to descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and regression analysis. Through empirical tests, the regression results show that firstly, the debt proportion still is lower than some foreign countries, and the capital structure and corporate performance show a negative correlation relationship. Secondly, the debt maturity structure is obviously short. The debt maturity structure and performance of companies show a positive correlation relationship. Thirdly, Listed companies should pay attention to adjust corporate debt maturity structure. The debt maturity and the debt proportion affect corporate performance of Chinese listed companies, this means that the debt maturity decision and the proportion of total debt financing decision are very important for listed companies. Although the debt maturity structure has influence on corporate performance, which is less than the debt to asset ratio, but in essential, listed companies should adjust the debt maturity structure, which is more important than the adjustment of the debt proportion. Chapter 5 sums up the conclusions of this paper, brings up relevant policy-related suggestions, and finally points out the inadequateness as well as future research directions.