Capital structure: Empirical evidences of public and non-public firms in Brazil

Abstract

This study seek to contribute to the literature through research focused on companies listed and not listed on the stock exchange. A survey was used to identify the capital structure of Brazilian compani es and relate the results to the Brazilian credit market. The results indicate that most of the investigated companies prefer not to issue convertible debt, as well as the share of firms issuing common shares was small. It was found that firms do not have preference between long-term and short-term debt. Finally, it was also noted that private companies have great concern about the volatility of earnings and cash flow. The differential of this research was to analyze the practices adopted by both public companies and privately held.