Fontes de dívida como instrumento de sinalização entre acionistas minoritários e gestores majoritários: evidências no Brasil

Abstract

This work investigated in a sample of 656 observations, corresponding to 207 public companies in Brazil, the relationship between debt and agency conflicts, from 2009 to 2013. Issuance of debt tends to signal positive information about the company, tending to reduce the probability of agency conflicts. Managers therefore borrow funds based on the perception of the market and investors, in turn, would use the debt sources in the composition of your expectations. Asked whether there are signs for the managers of minority shareholders reactions in their investment decisions, to guide your debt choice. There was the effect of the debt choice with regard to mitigating potential agency costs and hence reduce such conflicts. Sources of private bank debt, government banking and public placement were considered. The perception of agency conflicts was checked by the market value of firms, the liquidity in the trading of its shares and the level of information asymmetry, proxies of risk and minority investment and therefore of agency conflicts. The literature argues that the banks would have advantages over the debt of public placement; investors would take ride these advantages in order to minimize the risk of their investments. The relationship between the variables representing sources of debt and the perception of conflict was tested by regression analysis with panel data. In this analysis, different arguments suggest that the perception of conflict can influence the funding policies; this may be questioned to the extent that the minority investor may have used the existence of the source as decisive investment decision. A common source of endogeneity is the simultaneous determination of the variables that makes biased and inconsistent estimators. Therefore, it was used by MQ3E approach that considers the endogenous variables. Evidence shows that managers make their funding decisions based on the perception of the market, since the market value and the liquidity of the shares were significant on their decisions. On the other hand, minority investors are used for debt sources in the composition of their expectations for the firm. However, the Brazilian environment, are not found explicit preference for bank debt or public debt issuance, as advocated in the literature. The meaning of the demonstrated relationship leads to the interpretation that the market perception is not relevant in the capture by government bank debt, while presenting positive direction for private and public placement bank sources, indicating that managers opt for both front sources the positive reaction market. When the reactions are negative, there is no justification to use sources of debt in view of signaling decisions aimed at ensuring minority rights. The results corroborate although the Brazilian environment, with strong performance of government banks, may have inhibited the banking source signaling function, and the development of the issue and public placement of corporate bonds.