Irene Rini Demi Pangestuti

This study aims to contribute to the emergence of the literature focusing on exploring the factors influencing the financing decision, as well as examining the relationship between the firm size, profitability and firm growth towards the corporate debt. Questions such as how relevant firm size, profitability and firm growth to debt are, quantitatively, had not been fully answered in the business literature. The purpose of this study is to fill this large gap by examining the role of the firm size, profitability, investment and firm growth for the corporate debt. This study tries to examine the determinants of debt in the financial literature which include size, growth, business risk, and profitability in accordance with the capital structure theory, in manufacturing firms in Indonesia. The sample contained financial data from 150 firms for the period 2012–2017. The results showed that the manufacturing firms in Indonesia had high debt levels, especially the size, profitability, firm growth and profitability had proven to be the debt determinants, which also confirmed the Pecking Order Theory. This study also found that the management preference of manufacturing firms in Indonesia for risk was the risk-seeker or risk-neutral ones. This finding implies that the choice of funding sources originating from debt still provided greater returns compared to the capital cost needed due to business uncertainties.

This study aims to examine the effect of several variables such as profitability, firm size, asset structure, and commodity price (coal) on the capital structure with the debt to equity ratio (DER) as a proxy in the coal mining companies listed on the Indonesian capital market (i.e., the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The different results of previous studies related to the effect of some independent variables such as the firm size, profitability, asset structure, and dividend policy, such as dividend payout ratio to the DER, yield the research gaps that require further research. Data in this research were taken from the official public listed company’s annual reports on the IDX website. By employing the multiple regression techniques, this study found that only profitability and asset structure significantly affect the capital structure (proxied by DER). The effect of profitability was negative, while the effect of asset structure was positive. Based on these results, the managers may start considering re-balancing the use of external funds if the profitability level increases. Further, they also need to maintain the company’s asset structure and balance its’ fixed assets so that the capital structure is well maintained. In general, the findings supported the pecking order theory.