This study examines the relation between bank equity ownership and corporate hedging in Japan, an economy where banks are allowed, to a certain limit, to hold shares of firms to which they lend funds. The results show that bank equity ownership is positively related to the corporate usage of derivatives. We also find very little evidence that firm-level financial constraints affect derivatives usage. We further analyze the relation between derivatives usage and firm value to assess whether derivatives usage is driven by bank rent-seeking or speculative behavior. We find that derivatives usage is positively related to firm value providing support to the notion that bank equity ownership increases corporate hedging which, in turn, leads to high firm valuation. Robustness tests show that the relation between hedging and main bank equity ownership is not driven by endogeneity. In the end, our findings suggest that corporate hedging is driven by risk-averse incentives resulting from bank monitoring. We conclude that, in addition to relevant economic factors, ownership structure can also affect corporate hedging behavior.

We extend the domain of liability of foreignness (LOF) research to capital markets and evaluate whether firms incur LOF when attempting to raise debt capital abroad. We rely upon multiple conceptualizations of institutional distance to capture the extent to which distance may contribute to LOF in capital markets. Based on a sample of 361 firms from 45 countries over a 24year time period, we find that institutional distances lead to increased cost of debt. More importantly, we find that frequency of foreign bond issuance helps to mitigate the LOF. We conclude with a discussion of our results and their implications for future research on understanding how firms address LOF when sourcing debt abroad.

Why do companies not follow through with an IPO after filing for one? This question is investigated by examining common stock IPOs for the largest countries in Europe. We cover 80% of the Western European IPO market over the 2001–2015 period. We establish that the IPO phenomenon of withdrawal is a common feature of equity markets and identify key characteristics that influence the probability of withdrawal. Findings indicate that venture capital or private equity involvement, the presence of negative news, CEO duality, or the intent to retire debt increase the probability of IPO withdrawal. On the other hand, higher levels of corporate governance or trading volume decrease the pssrobability of IPO withdrawal. We argue that imminent agency conflicts and the lack of appropriate control mechanisms can force a company to withdraw from the IPO.