Impact of ownership structure on agency cost of debt in india

Abstract

Using data from Indian listed companies from 2000 to 2014, the relationship between the ownership structure of the firm and the agency cost of debt in the context of an emerging economy is being explored in this paper. We mainly look at family ownership. Family owners and debt holders share similar risk profile and long term orientation towards firms and therefore, expected to have goal alignment between them. However, we hypothesize that debt-holders, in the Indian context, are more concerned with the risk of wealth expropriation by the concentrated family owners rather than the benefits entailed by such an ownership structure. Accordingly, the paper attempts to answer the question: which agency problem namely the management-principal or the principal-principal is given more significance by the debt holders in the Indian context