Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirement for the MSc in Finance FINANCE DISSERTATION ON IMPACT OF CAPITAL STRUCTURE ON FIRM VALUE: EVIDENCE FROM LISTED COMPANIES IN VIETNAM DANG TIEN DAT ID No: 19046140 Intake 3 Supervisor: Dr. Do Thi Van Trang September 2020 Executive Summary The dissertation investigates the impact of capital structure on firm value of 435 listed firms on two major stock exchanges in Vietnam, HOSE and HNX, as well as three group of listed firms extracted from the total including food and beverage, construction and real estate industry. Pooled OLS, pooled OLS with fixed and random effects as well as generalized method of moments (GMM) are applied for secondary data in the 2012-2019 period. The estimation results show capital structure has an insignificant impact on firm value measured by enterprise value indicator considering all non-financial services industries as a whole, while has a positive and significant impact in food and beverage industry, but has a negative and significant impact in construction and real estate industry.
Control factors are employed along with capital structure and their results also show the similarities as well as differences across industries: the relationship between firm size and firm value is positively significant. Firm profitability also has a positive and significant influence on firm value when all industries are combined as well as food and beverage industry, while has no significant influence in construction and real estate industry. The relationship between firm growth and firm value is insignificant combining all industries, but negatively significant in three selected industries. Firm tangibility also has no significant effect considering all industries, whereas has a positive and significant effect in food and beverage as well as construction industry, but has negative and significant effect in real estate industry.
The relationship between firm liquidity and firm value when all industries are combined and construction industry is insignificant as well, while it is positively i significant among listed food and beverage firms but negatively significant among listed real estate firms. The findings are mostly consistent with past empirical studies as well theoretical research, and they can also be explained by business characteristics of selected industries. The knowledge and results of the dissertation can provide a sound understanding on capital structure and firm value, which can support managers, investors, regulators and creditors in making appropriate decisions, as well as academics in their future extending research on the relationship between capital structure and firm value. ii Acknowledgments Firstly, I want to give my most sincere gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor and mentor – Dr.
Do Thi Van Trang, who always encourage me to explore something even when the topics are familiar, guide me on my research with thoughtfulness and inspire me to follow the path that I’ve been longing for since I was an undergraduate. I hope we could have more collaborations in the future. Secondly, I want to express my thankfulness to the lecturers and the management of MSc in Finance program of UWE Bristol, both from UK and partnership institutions, who have worked enthusiastically and tirelessly to assist me and other students throughout the entire course. I wish you all good health during the time of pandemic outbreak.
I also want to thank my family from the bottom of my heart, not just for this master programme, but for what they have done and will be doing for me. I could have never accomplished anything in my life without them. I am forever in their debts, and no gratitude, appreciation or thankfulness will be enough. In addition, I want to thank my friends and others, who also provide me a lot of emotional support and stay by my side during these difficult times.
Once again, thank you everyone for everything. iii Table of Contents Executive Summary. iii Table of Contents. iv List of Abbreviations.
1 List of Tables. 2 Chapter 2: Literature Review. Theoretical background of capital structure decisions. Empirical evidence from impact of capital structure on firm value.
13 Chapter 3: Data and Methodology. Variables and hypotheses. 24 Chapter 4: Results and Discussion. Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix.
Analysis and discussion of results. Limitations of estimation. 40 Chapter 5: Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations. Summary and conclusions.
51 Appendix A: Descriptive Statistics – Food and Beverage industry. 55 Appendix B: Descriptive Statistics – Construction industry. 56 Appendix C: Descriptive Statistics – Real Estate industry. 56 Appendix D: Correlation Matrix – Food and Beverage industry 57 Appendix E: Correlation Matrix – Construction industry.
57 Appendix F: Correlation Matrix – Real Estate industry. 57 iv List of Abbreviations D-W Durbin-Watson EBIT Earnings before Interests and Taxes EU European Union EV Enterprise Value EVFTA EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement F&B Food and Beverage FEM Fixed Effects Model FMCG Fast Moving Consumer Goods GDP Gross Domestic Product GICS Global Industry Classification Standard GLS Generalized Least Squares HOSE Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange HNX Ha Noi Stock Exchange M&M Modigliani and Miller NAICS North American Industry Classification System NPV Net Present Value OLS Ordinary Least Squares PB Price-to-book ratio PE Price-to-earnings ratio REM Random Effects Model ROA Return on Total Assets ROE Return on Total Equity U. United States VSIC Vietnam Standard Industrial Classification WACC Weighted Average Cost of Capital List of Tables Number Name Page 3.1 The choice of variables 25 Descriptive Statistics – All industries (excluding financial 4.1 26 services sector) Correlation Matrix – All industries (excluding financial 4.2 27 services sector) Estimation results – All industries (excluding financial 4.4 Estimation results – Food and Beverage industry 29 4.5 Estimation results – Construction industry 29 4.6 Estimation results – Real Estate industry 29 4.7 Outline estimation results (FEM and GMM method) 30 Robust estimation results – All industries (excluding 4.8 41 financial services sector) 4.9 Robust estimation results – Food and Beverage industry 41 4.10 Robust estimation results – Construction industry 42 4.11 Robust estimation results – Real Estate industry 42 1 Chapter 1: Introduction Under the negative effects of a worldwide disease, the growth of Vietnamese GDP in the first 6 months of 2020 only increased 1.81%, which is the lowest growth rate in the last 10 years (GSO of Vietnam, 2020). In spite of the fact that the global economy entered a recession as a consequence of Covid-19, the growth of Vietnamese GDP is stated to be relatively high compared to economic “giants” with negative GDP growth rates such as the U., the EU, Japan, etc.
The economy of Vietnam is forecasted to recover with a total GDP growth rate of 4.1% at the end of 2020, which is the highest among nations in South East Asia. The country is also expected to revive in the year of 2021 at the rate of 6. In addition, there’re several notable industries which might play essential roles for the recovery as well as the future prosperity of Vietnamese economy including food and beverage (F&B), construction and real estate. Food and beverage industry in Vietnam has the second largest production value (only after retail) in the economy and it is also pointed out to be one of the most important industries with a lot of growing potentials (VCCI, 2017).
Because the majorities of Vietnamese population are young people and there has been an increase in income over the years, along with powerful firms and popular brands, the industry is projected to be in top three in Asia in the near future (Nieuwsbericht, 2019). However, it can be seen that the revenues of Vietnamese food and beverage industry dropped approximately $12.1 billion which is equal to 16.6% year-to-year in the first 7 months of 2020, and if the social distancing campaign repeats it will be difficult for the industry to recover (Thong, 2020). Nevertheless, the EVFTA have just taken effect on the beginning of August 2020 will be an excellent 2 opportunity for the F&B industry in Vietnam thanks to tariff liberalization and immediate duty-free for many agricultural products, which include coffee, tea, spices, fruits and nuts (Nguyen, 2020). The overall growth as well as contribution to the GDP of Vietnamese construction and industrial sector are highest among three sectors in the first six months of 2020, which is 2.
Although the negative impact of epidemic outbreak to construction industry in Vietnam is only at a moderate level, the year of 2020 is still forecasted to be difficult for contractors, as most of them are small firms have low profit margins and there will be an increase in competitive pressure during global pandemic (FPT Securities, 2020). Despite the difficulties, the industry is projected to have a strong annual growth at approximately 7.2% in the next 10 years by Fitch Solutions, 6.8% in the wider construction and 5.7% in the infrastructure sector from 2021 to 2019. This is due to the strong growth of Vietnamese economy in the recent years, thus it leads to an increase in income then a rise in demand for luxury residential properties in major cities (Ngoc, 2020). According to the information in the 2020-2021 Vietnamese real estate conference, the industry is pointed out to have a substantial influence on 35 other industries in the economy of Vietnam such as construction, tourism, finance and banking (65% of collaterals are real estate), etc.
It is also one of the eight sectors which are heavily affected by the Covid-19, but most problems are pointed out to be the complexity in investment procedures, insufficient land fund and limited transportation infrastructure. Despite the drawbacks, the outlook stays positive because there’s still a large capacity in industrial real estate, banks offers many 3 credit products for household and logistics real estate as well and there’s also an increase in government’s investments (Nhi, 2020). Additionally, the EVFTA will stimulate the export activities and in turns, attract more for foreign investments and increase demand in industrial properties such as land and ready-built factories (Ly, 2020). The real estate industry is expected to grow in the last 3 months of 2020 in the best case scenario, but more likely to stay quiet until the upcoming years (Nguyen, 2020).
Financing is one of the most important decisions in corporate finance in order to maximize shareholder’s wealth, which can consider to be the prerequisite for the investment decision as well as dividend decision (Arnold, 2013). However, the debates on the choice of debt and equity still remains puzzling until nowadays (Singh & Bansal, 2016). In addition, the publicity of research on capital structure and firm value is pointed out to be limited in Vietnam (Vo & Ellis, 2017). Most of the empirical studies in Vietnam as well as other countries only focus on all listed firms in one stock exchange or one particular sector while there is hardly any comparison between the findings across sectors.
Motivated by the importance of three prominent industries to the growth of Vietnamese economy mentioned above, the author decided to examine the impact of capital structure on firm value considering all industries together (excluding the financial services sector) as well as the impact in food and beverage, construction and real estate industry. The results of the dissertation are compared with not just with past theoretical and empirical research, but also the business features of selected industries in order to have reasonable explanations for the statistical outcomes. In addition, the information in the study could benefit financial managers, investors, regulators, 4 creditors in their process of decision-making, as well as academics in making further analysis regarding to impact of capital structure on firm value. The remaining chapters are organized as follow: Chapter 2 presents literature review relating to the theoretical background of capital structure and the empirical evidence of its effect on firm value.
Chapter 3 demonstrates the data and methodology for the dissertation including the collection of data and the choice of variables, hypotheses, estimation methods. Chapter 4 describes, analyzes and discusses the empirical results, along with hypothesis testing and several limitations.