Open    Access



Branch Standards as the Possible Way of Optimizing of Capital Structure of the Concrete Firm



Author(s)

Milan Hrdý

Full-Text PDF XML     311 Views

DOI:10.17265/1548-6583/2018.04.002

This article is about the problem of optimizing of the capital structure of the concrete firm and about the possibility to use the passive way of optimizing of this capital structure on the basis of the so-called Branch standards. Branch standards are defined as some average indebtedness that the firms are trying to follow. There are a lot of theories available, but the final process of optimizing of the capital structure of the concrete firm is very complicated and it is necessary to cope with a lot of application problems. Besides Traditional theory, none of the further theories offer some concrete recommended optimal indebtedness. For that reason, the possibility to optimize the capital structure based on the passive way is represented besides other things by the so-called Branch standards. The aim of this article is to judge if it is possible to identify this average indebtedness in different branches and in different countries. The hypothesis was stated that it is possible only in selected branches in selected countries. The research is realized in the six selected branches: Railroads, Beverages, Steel, Paper Production, Tobacco, and Electrical Equipment in the Czech Republic and in USA. Data for the years 2008-2016 were obtained from the system Albertina Data at the University of Economics in Prague and from the web pages of Prof. Aswath Damodaran in USA. There were identified so-called Branch standards in the Czech Republic for the branches Railroads 45%, Beverages 50%, Tobacco 50%, and Electrical Equipment 40%. There are also identified so-called Branch standards in USA for the branches Railroads 40% and Paper Production 40%-50%. For the branch Paper Production in the Czech Republic and for the branch Beverages in USA were identified ranges of 40%-45% and 40%-50% respectively. The so-called Branch standards were not stated for the branch Steel in both countries and for the branches Tobacco and Electrical Equipment in USA. The values were verified by the data for the year 2016 and the so-called Branch standards were confirmed excluding the branch Steel in both countries and the branches Tobacco and Electrical Equipment in the US.

capital structure, optimizing, branch standards, analysis