The impact of asset liquidity on leverage. Empirical evidences of privatised firms in Serbia

      Аннотация: This book is the research of the relationship between asset liquidity and leverage. It is applied to privatised firms in Serbia that have been privatised in 2004 though auction. For the purpose of this research, seven industries were analysed. To see whether the relationship between asset liquidity and leverage is changed when privatised firms became free to dispose their assets, the relationship between asset liquidity and leverage is examined in the first year after privatisation, while privatised firms were still under control by the Privatisation Agency and therefore their assets were securing the debt. Then the same is done in the fourth year after privatisation, when there was no control over privatised firms by the Privatisation Agency and their debt was unsecured. The main conclusion from this research is that, in most industries, the asset liquidity is not linearly related to the leverage. Moreover, in almost all industries the relationship between asset liquidity and leverage did not change in the fourth year after privatisation. Finally, in case of Serbian privatised companies, the ownership structure is not related to the leverage.

Ключевые слова: Agency theory, Privatisation, leverage, Asset liquidity, Liquidity index, Transaction-cost theory