The Role of Blockholders in the Corporate Debt Maturity Structure

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of blockholders on the corporate debt maturity structure within the framework of agency theory. Using a novel and hand-collected dataset in Australia, we find support for our hypothesis that debt maturity is a concave function of block equity ownership. Our findings contribute to empirical evidence on the monitoring effects of blockholders and the use of debt maturity to control for debt-equity and manager-equity conflicts.