优化资本结构债务与权益之间找到恰当的平衡[外文翻译].doc

本科毕业论文（设计）

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Optimizing the capital structure: Finding the right balance between debt and equity
Just over 50 years ago Miller and Modigliani (1958) showed that under a certain set of conditions—namely perfect capital markets with no taxes and agency conflicts—a firm’s capital structure is irrelevant to its valuation.
Their results are controversial and have raised a large number of questions from academics and practitioners.
This article summarizes the main issues underlying the choice by firms of an appropriate capital structure, taking into account their specific fundamentals as well as macroeconomic factors.
It presents the benefits and costs of borrowing, describes how to assess these to arrive at the basic trade-off between debt and equity, and examines conditions under which debt becomes irrelevant.
Types of Financing
There are three financing methods that companies can use: debt, equity, and hybrid securities. This categorization is based on the main characteristics of the securities.
Debt Financing
Debt financing ranges from simple bank debt to commercial paper and corporate bonds. It is a contractual arrangement between a company and an investor, whereby the company pays a predetermined claim (or interest) that is not a function of its operating performance, but which is treated in accounting standards as an expense for tax purposes and is therefore tax-deductible. The debt has a fixed life and has a priority claim on cash flows in both operating periods and bankruptcy. This is because interest is paid before the claims to equity holders, and, if the company defaults on interest payments, it will be declared bankrupt, its assets will be sold, and the amount owed to debt holders will be paid before any payments are made to equity holders.
Equity Financing
Equity financing includes owners’ equity, venture capital (equity capital provided to a private firm in exchange for a share ownership of the firm), common equity, and warrants (the right to buy a share of stock in a company at a fixed price during the life of the warrant). Unlike debt, it is permanent in the company, its claim is residual and does not create a tax advantage from its payments as dividends are paid after interest and tax, it does not have priority in bankruptcy, and it provides management control for the owner.
Hybrid Securities
Hybrid securities are securities that share some characteristics with both debt and equity and include, for example, convertible securities (defined as debt that can be converted into equity at a prespecified date and conversion rate), preferred stock, and option-linked bonds.
The Irrelevance Proposition
In 1958 Modigliani and Miller demonstrated that, under a certain set of assumptions, the choice between any of these securities (referred to as capital structure or leverage) is not relevant to a company’s valuation. The assumptions include: no taxes, no costs of financial distress, perfect capital markets, no interest rate differentials, no agency costs (rationality), and no transaction costs. These assumptions are, in fact, the main drivers of capital structure and gave rise to the trade-off theory of leverage.
The Trade-Off of Debt
In this so-called Miller–Modigliani framework, firms choose their optimal level of leverage by weighing the following benefits and costs of debt financing.
Benefits of Debt
There are two main advantages of debt financing: taxation, and added discipline.
Taxation: Since the interest on debt is paid before taxation, whereas dividends paid to equity holders are usually paid from profit after tax, the cost of debt is substantially less than the cost of equity. This tax-deductibility of interest makes debt financing attractive. Suppose that the debt of a company is $100 million and the interest rate is 10%. Every year the company pays interest of $10 million. Suppose that the corporation tax rate is 30%. If the company does not pay tax, its interest will be $10 million and the cost of debt will be 10%. However, if the company is able to deduct the tax on this $10 million from its corporation tax payment, then the company saves $10 million × 30% = $3 million in tax payments per year, making the effective interest payment only $7 million. If the debt is permanent, every year the company will have a $3 million tax saving, referred to as a tax shield. We can compute the present value (PV) by discounting annual value by the cost of debt, as follows:
PV of tax shield = kd × D × tckd = D × tc
where kd is the cost of debt, D is the amount of debt, and the product of kd and D gives the amount of the interest charge. tc is the corporation tax rate. We simplify the ratio by kd to obtain the present value of the tax shield as the product of the amount of debt and the corporation tax rate. Thus, the value of a company that is financed with debt and equity (such a company is referred to “levered”) should be equal to its value if it is financed only with equity plus the present value of the tax shield. We can write this value as:
Value of levered firm with debt D =Value of nonlevered firm + D × tc
These arguments suggest that the after-tax cost of debt can be computed as 10% × (1-30%) = 7%.
Added discipline: In practice, the managers are not the owners of the company. This so-called separation of managers and stockholders raises the possibility that managers may prefer to maximize their own wealth rather that of the stockholders. This is referred to as the agency conflict. In general, debt may make managers more disciplined because debt requires a fixed payment of interest, and defaulting on such payments will lead a company to bankruptcy.
Costs of Debt
Debt has a number of disadvantages, including a higher probability of bankruptcy, an increase in the agency conflicts between managers and bondholders, loss of future financial flexibility, and the cost of information asymmetry.
Expected bankruptcy cost. Given that debt holders can declare a company bankrupt if it defaults on its interest payment, companies that have a high level of debt are likely to have a high probability of facing such a default. This probability is also increased when a company is operating in a high business risk environment. Debt financing creates financial risk. Thus, companies that have high business risk should not increase their risk of default by taking on a high financial risk through their use of debt. Evidence indicates that much of the loss of value occurs not in the liquidation process but in the stage of financial distress, when the firm is struggling to pay its bills (including interest), even though it may not go on to be liquidated.
Agency costs. These costs arise when a company borrows funds and the managers use the funds to finance alternative, usually more risky, activities than those specified in the borrowing contract to generate higher returns to stockholders. The greater the separation between managers and lenders, the higher the agency costs.
Loss of future financing flexibility. When a firm increases its debt substantially, it faces difficulties raising additional debt. Companies that can forecast their future financing needs accurately can plan their financing better and may not raise additional funds randomly. In general, the greater the uncertainty about future financing needs, the higher the costs.
Information asymmetry. When companies do not disclose information to the market, their information asymmetry will be high, resulting in a higher cost of debt financing.
Redeployable assets of debt. Lenders require some sort of security when they fund a company. This security is referred to as collateral. Lenders accept assets that can be resold or redeployed into other activities, such as property (real estate), as collateral. In general, the lower the value of the redeployable assets of debt, the higher are the costs.
Financing Choices and a Firm’s Life Cycle
Although companies may prefer to use internal financing to minimize the issuance (transaction) costs, the trend in financing depends critically on the firm’s life cycle.
Start-ups are small, privately owned companies. They are likely to be financed by owners’ funds and bank borrowings. Their funding needs are high, but their ability to raise external funding is limited because they do not have sufficient assets to offer as security to finance providers. They will try to seek private equity funding. Their long-term leverage is likely to be low as they are mainly financed with short-term debt.
Expanding companies are those that have succeeded in attracting customers and establishing a presence in the market. They are likely to be financed by private equity and/or venture capital in addition to owners’ equity and bank debt. Their level of debt is low and they have more short-term than long-term debt in their capital structure.
High-growth companies are likely to be publicly traded, with rapidly growing revenues. They will issue equity in the form of common stock, warrants, and other equity options, and probably convertible debt. They are likely to have a moderate leverage.
Mature companies are likely to finance their activities by internal financing, debt, and equity. Their leverage is likely to be relatively high but will depend on the costs and benefits of debt and their fundamental factors, such as business risk and taxation.
Conclusion
This article discussed the different financing methods companies can use and then argued that their choice depends on the costs and benefits of debt financing and the firm’s life cycle. For example, whereas startup companies are likely to be financed with private personal funds, making their leverage low, mature companies tend to have high leverage because they are able to mitigate the costs of debt and gain from the tax benefits. In addition to these factors, in practice firms may choose their financing mix by mimicking comparable firms, or they may adopt the average level of debt of all the companies in their industry. These methods are not highly recommendable as they may result in a suboptimal choice. In other cases they follow a financing hierarchy, where retained earnings are the preferred option, followed by external financing in the form of debt, and then equity. This preference is driven by the transaction and monitoring costs.
Making It Happen
The choice of financing is strategic and involves the following issues:
• Both low- and high-debt financing are suboptimal. Companies should aim for the most advantageous level of debt financing, whereby the costs are minimized and the benefits are maximized.
• The costs of debt include a greater probability of bankruptcy, an increase in the agency conflicts between managers and bondholders, a loss of future financial flexibility (including the availability of collateral assets), and information asymmetry costs.
• The benefits relate mainly to tax shields and the added discipline to mitigate the agency conflicts between stockholders and managers.
• This equilibrium applies primarily to mature companies. Start-ups and growth companies are likely to have lower leverage as their borrowing capacity is low. It also applies to companies that normally pay dividends and do not accumulate cash for reinvestment in order to avoid the need to raise external financing.
• The recent financial crisis has highlighted another issue in debt financing, namely liquidity. Leverage concepts were developed mainly in times when debt financing was fully available. In the current credit crisis this is no longer the case. Companies therefore now have to pay an extra liquidity cost to raise additional capital. The question is whether this is a temporary situation or a permanent one, in which case debt will become more costly and leverage will be lower than in the past.
• Another challenge of debt financing relates to the ethics of the use of excessive debt financing, particularly by financial institutions. Pettifor (2006) was able to foresee the current crisis, tracing debt financing back to early times and arguing that religions are against debt because it results in usury. She provides interesting arguments, challenging the whole structure of debt financing, payment of interest, and interest tax deductibility. Possibly a new structure of debt that is linked to the profitability of assets and incurs no interest will emerge from the current crisis.

Source: Meziane Lasfer, 2009”Optimizing the Capital Structure: Finding the Right Balance between Debt and Equity”. .
优化资本结构：债务与权益之间找到恰当的平衡
仅仅在50年前，米勒和莫迪利亚尼（1958）表明，在一组特定的条件下，即没有税收和代理冲突的完全资本市场，一个公司的资本结构与其估值无关。他们的研究结果是有争议的，专业学者和从业人员对其提出了大量问题。
本文总结了公司选择一个基本适当的资本结构的主要问题，考虑到他们的具体基本面以及宏观经济因素
它提出了利润和借贷成本，并介绍了如何评估它们来达到债务与权益的基本平衡。并探讨负债不相关时的情况。
财务类型
企业可以的有三种筹资方式：债券，股票和混合证券。这种分类是根据有价证券的主要特征。
负债融资
债务融资的范围从简单的银行债务的商业票据和公司债券。这是公司和投资者的契约协议。据此，公司支付了预定的要求（或利息），不是其经营业绩，按照会计准则，作为税务开支，因此免税。债务是固定的，当经营期和破产时，在资金流量上有优先受偿权。这是因为向股权所有者赔偿在股利支付之后，若该公司拖欠股利支付，将被宣布破产，其资产将被出售。欠债权人的钱将在股东之前支付。
产权筹资
产权融资包括所有者权益，风险资本（产权资本提供给私人公司在公司换取A股的所有权），普通股本和委托（行权期间以固定价格购买一股股票期权的权利）。不像负债，它是公司常设的，在利息和税款之后作为红利的支付，所以不创造税收优势。
混合证券
混合证券是一种和负债和权益有共同点，例如，可转换证券（定义为在预先指定的日期和转换率下，可以将债务转换成股权），优先股和期权挂钩的债券。
不相关命题
1958年莫迪利亚尼和米勒证实，在特定的假设下，这些证券之间的选择（简称资本结构或杠杆）与公司的估值不相关。这些假设包括：没有税收，没有财务困境成本，完善资本市场，没有利率差，没有代理成本（理性），没有交易成本。事实上，这些假设是资本结构和产生杠杆的权衡理论的动因。
权衡债务
在这个所谓的米勒，莫迪里阿尼的框架内，企业通过权衡以下好处和债务融资成本来选择最佳水平的杠杆。
债务的好处
债务融资有两个主要优势：税收，并增加了纪律。税收：由于债务利息是税前支付，而支付给股东的股息通常是从税后利润支付，债务成本大大低于股票的成本。这项税款扣除利息使得债务融资的吸引力。假设该公司的债务资本1亿美元，利率为10％。公司每年支付1000万美元利息。假设公司税率为30％。如果公司不付税，其利息将达到1000万，债务成本是10％。但是，如果公司能够扣除这10万元在其公司纳税额上，那么公司每年节省了10000000×30％=300万元的税款支付，使实际利率支付只有700万美元。如果债务是永久性的，公司每年将有300万节税，称为税盾效应。我们可以通过债务成本值的贴现计算每年的现值（PV），如下所示：
税盾的现值=债务数额*公司税税率
我们简化了债务成本的比率，以获取税盾的现值作为的债务数额和公司税税率的产物。因此，债务和股权融资应等于其公司价值（这样的公司被称为杠杆），如果它仅通过权益加税盾的现值融资。我们可以写这个值：
负债下公司杠杆的价值=无杠杆公司的价值+债务数额*公司税税率
这些参数表明，债务的税后成本可以计算为10%*（1-30%）=7%
新增规律：实际上，公司的管理者不是公司的所有者。这种所谓管理人员和股东的分离提高了管理者可能希望自己财富最大化而不是股东财富最大化的可能性。这是被称为代理冲突。一般情况下，债务可能使管理者受制约，因为债务支付的利息固定，并且拖欠支付这些会导致公司破产。
债务成本
债务有一些缺点，包括破产概率较高，管理者与债券持有人的代理冲突增加，未来财务灵活性损失，以及信息不对称成本。
预期破产成本。由于债权人可以宣布破产公司，如果其拖欠支付利息，具有较高债务水平的公司面临这样一个拖欠的可能性很大。这个可能性也会在当公司处于高风险环境的商业运作的时候变大。债务融资产生的财务风险。因此，具有很高商业风险的公司不应利用债务处在一个高财务风险，增加其违约的风险。有证据表明，当这家公司正在努力来应付开支（包括利息），尽管它可能不会继续进行清算。许多价值损失不发生在清算过程，而是在金融危机阶段。
代理成本。当一个公司借入资金和管理人员使用资金替代时，产生代理成本。这通常更危险，在借款合同规定以外的活动能给股东带来更高的回报。所以管理者和领导者之间越大的分离，代理成本越高。
未来融资灵活性的丧失。当一家公司的债务大幅增加，他要面对更多的债务出现困难。那些可以准确地预测其未来的融资可以更好的规划自己的融资，不得随意增加额外资金。在一般情况下，对未来的融资需求不确定性越大，需要的费用越高。
信息不对称。当公司不向市场披露信息，他们的信息不对称会很高，导致更高的债务融资成本。重新部署资产债务。贷款人成立一家公司需要某种保障。这种保障被称为抵押。贷款人接受那些可以转售或重新部署到其他活动的资产，如作为财产（房地产）作为抵押品。一般来说，债务重新部署资产的价值越低，代价越高。
融资选择和与一个企业的生命周期
虽然公司可能更愿意使用内部融资，以减低发行（交易）成本，在融资的趋势关键取决于企业的生命周期。
初创企业是指小型、私人拥有的公司。他们很可能是由业主的资金和银行融资借款。它们的资金需求很高，但他们筹集外部资金的能力是有限的，因为他们没有足够的资产作为担保，提供给融资的提供者。他们会尽力寻求私人股本融资。
其长期杠杆很可能是低，因为他们主要是短期债务融资。
扩大企业是那些已经成功吸引客户和建立在市场存在的公司。他们很可能被私人直接投资或是除了所有者权益和银行债务的风险资本融资。他们的债务水平低，他们在更短的资本结构较长期债务期限。
高增长公司在迅速增长收入下，有可能公开上市。他