Corporate governance and cash holdings in listed non-financial firms in Pakistan

Authors

Alina Masood, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan
Attaullah Shah, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan

Abstract

In this study, the relationship between corporate cash holdings and corporate governance variables is tested in Pakistan. The sample consists of 309 non-financial firms listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) over the time span of 2002 to 2010. The study uses several proxies for corporate governance mechanisms such as percentage ownership held by directors, institutional investors, and five largest shareholders, the existence of audit committees and a measure of concentration of ownership. To avoid omitted variable bias, the study also controls for all well-known determinants of corporate cash holdings (market to-book ratio, growth, size, leverage, R&D investments, cash flow volatility and cash flows). The two main findings of the study are (i) director’s ownership and board size are negatively related with corporate cash holdings. The institutional shareholdings, concentration of shares and the ownership percentage of 5 big shareholders are directly related to cash holdings. (ii) Among the control variables, growth and size are insignificant while dividend and cash flows are positively associated with cash holdings and leverage, capital expenditure and net-working capital are negatively related to cash holdings. The findings imply that managers of the firms do not misuse the cash when more monitoring and control is involved by the shareholders. The results also indicate that cash holdings by the firms are maintained for the dividend payments. Finally, debt and working capital act as a cash substitute for firms which lead to less cash holdings.

Keywords

Cash holdings, Corporate governance, Non-financial firms, Karachi Stock Exchange

DOI

https://doi.org/10.54784/1990-6587.1271

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Masood, A., & Shah, A. (2014). Corporate governance and cash holdings in listed non-financial firms in Pakistan. Business Review, 9(2), 48-73. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.54784/1990-6587.1271