Excess cash holdings, investment opportunity and shareholder value: European evidences

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the marginal value of extra liquidity for a sample of excess cash listed companies (i.e. ECs) operating in the five largest E.U. economies (France, Italy, Germany, Spain and UK). After had shown that these companies are generally penalised by the market, in line with previous literature, we show that extra cash held is not detrimental to shareholder value when it is combined with high investment opportunities leading, hence, in a premium of 1€ extra held. This relation is even stronger during the financial crisis of 2008. These results confirm that the main reason why ECs are generally valued less by the market is the concern that their managers may deploy excess cash in value-destroying activities. However, EC firms are not penalized ceteris paribus when there are investment opportunities. In addition, such relation is stronger with the presence of financial constraints and lack of liquidity, as explained by the transaction and precautionary motive for holding cash.