Trade Off Theory Of Capital Structure

736 Words3 Pages
A firm’s capital structure is the combine of its’ financial resources obtainable for carrying on the business and is a major determinant on how the business operates.,. While debt holders apply minor control over the company, and do not determine how the business is run, they earn a fixed rate of return and are protected by contractual obligation. As financial capital is an undetermined but critical resource for all firms, suppliers of the finance are able to apply control over firms. the two major classes of financing for a business are debt and equity. The contractual obligations order about what return is to be paid for the finance and when it is due. Equity holders are the residual claimants of all the business’ returns, posture most…show more content…
The theory suggest that the firm's optimal capital structure include the tradeoff among the influences of firms and personal taxes, agency costs and bankruptcy costs, etc. Tradeoff theory expect that corporations select levels of debt in order to achieve a balance among the benefits from the interest tax shield with the costs related to a future financial distress or with current financial inflexibility. The Trade-off theory of capital structure refers to the idea that a company chooses how much debt finance and how much equity finance to use by balancing the costs and benefits. Trade-off theory of capital structure basically entails offsetting the costs of debt against the benefits of debt. The direct cost of financial distress refers to the cost of bankruptcy of a company. Once the proceedings of bankruptcy start, the assets of the firm may be needed to be sold at distress price, which is generally much lower than the current values of the assets. A huge amount of administrative and legal costs is also connected with the bankruptcy. Even though the company is not insolvent, the financial distress of the company may include a number of indirect costs e.g. cost of employees, cost of managers, cost of suppliers, cost of shareholder’s, cost of investors, and cost of…show more content…
Companies prioritize their sources of financing, first preferring internal financing, and then debt, lastly raising equity as a "last resort". Hence: internal financing is used first; when that is depleted, then debt is issued; and when it is no longer intelligent to issue any more debt, equity is issued. This theory maintains that businesses adhere to a hierarchy of financing sources and prefer internal financing when available, and debt is preferred over equity if external financing is required (equity would mean issuing shares which meant 'bringing external ownership' into the company). Thus, the form of debt a firm chooses can act as a signal of its need for external

More about Trade Off Theory Of Capital Structure

Open Document