Why Firms Hold Cash? An Empirical Investigation of UK Companies

This paper examines the determinants of holdings of cash by publicly traded UK firms over the period 2000-2009. Larger firms hold less cash as they have greater access to the capital market. Cash holdings in firms with better investment opportunities and more volatile cash flow are relatively larger...

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Main Author: Chen, Shuangying
Format: Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2010
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/24045/
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author Chen, Shuangying
author_facet Chen, Shuangying
author_sort Chen, Shuangying
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper examines the determinants of holdings of cash by publicly traded UK firms over the period 2000-2009. Larger firms hold less cash as they have greater access to the capital market. Cash holdings in firms with better investment opportunities and more volatile cash flow are relatively larger. And firms with less liquid asset substitutes tend to hold higher ratios of cash to total assets to ensure the finance of positive-NPV projects. Financially constrained firms that are more sensitive to the idiosyncratic risk increase their cash holdings; but for financially unconstrained firms, cash holdings are irrelevant. In addition, we observe that cash holdings vary across industries. However, there is less evidence that firms hold more cash as they incur large capital expenditures.
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format Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
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language English
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publishDate 2010
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spelling nottingham-240452018-01-30T18:17:54Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/24045/ Why Firms Hold Cash? An Empirical Investigation of UK Companies Chen, Shuangying This paper examines the determinants of holdings of cash by publicly traded UK firms over the period 2000-2009. Larger firms hold less cash as they have greater access to the capital market. Cash holdings in firms with better investment opportunities and more volatile cash flow are relatively larger. And firms with less liquid asset substitutes tend to hold higher ratios of cash to total assets to ensure the finance of positive-NPV projects. Financially constrained firms that are more sensitive to the idiosyncratic risk increase their cash holdings; but for financially unconstrained firms, cash holdings are irrelevant. In addition, we observe that cash holdings vary across industries. However, there is less evidence that firms hold more cash as they incur large capital expenditures. 2010-09-24 Dissertation (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/24045/1/Why_Firms_Hold_Cash_An_Empirica_Investigation_of_UK_Companies.pdf Chen, Shuangying (2010) Why Firms Hold Cash? An Empirical Investigation of UK Companies. [Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)] (Unpublished)
spellingShingle Chen, Shuangying
Why Firms Hold Cash? An Empirical Investigation of UK Companies
title Why Firms Hold Cash? An Empirical Investigation of UK Companies
title_full Why Firms Hold Cash? An Empirical Investigation of UK Companies
title_fullStr Why Firms Hold Cash? An Empirical Investigation of UK Companies
title_full_unstemmed Why Firms Hold Cash? An Empirical Investigation of UK Companies
title_short Why Firms Hold Cash? An Empirical Investigation of UK Companies
title_sort why firms hold cash? an empirical investigation of uk companies
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/24045/