Agency costs and Islamic bond issuers' long-run performance in Malaysia. (2017) - Minai, Mohd Sobri
The extensive issuance of Islamic bonds in different parts of the world raises the question of whether such a financing activity leads to better firm performance or not and what the determinants are of this performance. The literature offers scant answers. Thus, this study measures the long-run performance of Malaysian firms following their Islamic debt issues and explores the agency cost explanations of the performance. One-, two-, and three-year stock return performances are measured by the buy and hold abnormal return (BHAR) of Islamic debt issues using samples of 113, 101, and 86 Islamic debt issues, respectively, in the 2001-2009 period. The significance of the performance is tested by heteroscedasticity-and-serial correlation-consistent t-statistics. The determinants of BHAR are investigated using the ordinary least square regression method. The results show a significant positive long-run performance beyond a one-year period that is negatively influenced by growth opportunity and free cash flow when the issue increases the debt ratio.