双向资金占用与上市公司资本投资

Bidirectional Capital Impropriation and Capital Investment of Listed Companies

关联资金占用不仅是控股股东占用上市公司资源,也有上市公司占用控股集团资金的情况,即双向资金占用。前者是控股股东掏空上市公司的一种手段,而后者可以理解为控股股东支持上市公司的一种方式。资金占用可视为一种融资手段,是内部资本市场资金配置的一种形式。本文研究发现,关联方应收项目(关联方占用上市公司资金)会抑制上市公司的资本投资规模,降低投资—现金流敏感度。而上市公司对关联方的应付项目相当于获得了成本很低的资金,起到补充投资活动现金流的作用,促进了上市公司的资本投资规模,提高了投资—现金流敏感度。

In recent decades, related transactions are heavily criticized by scholars and regulation authorities since related parties of a listed company may ＂tunnel＂ the resources of that listed company, damaging the interests of other stakeholders. And one kind of the ＂tunneling＂ is the capital impropriation, which is common and severe in emerging market where the investor protection is weak. In contrast, a listed company may also impropriate capitals from its controlling business group or related parities reflected as accrued liabilities in the financial statement of the listed company, which can be considered as the ＂supporting hand＂ from related parties. Thus, the capital impropriation may be bidirectional. Inessentially, the capital impropriate is a financing behavior with low cost, and it can provide necessary working capitals for some firms and reduce that for the other. Since the working capital is an important part of the firm＇s stock of capital, which can be thought of as relaxing firm＇s short-run financing constraints, it may significantly influence firms＇ capital investment behaviors. Using the data of Chinese listed firms in 2005 and 2006, this paper investigates the effect of bidirectional capital impropriation on listed firms＇ capital investment efficiency. We find that receivable items like accounting receivable or other accruals that related parties owe to the listed firms will reduce the capital expenditure of listed companies and reduce the sensitivity of investment-cash flow relation. Actually, capital impropriation by listed firms may stimulate their capital investments and increase the sensitivity of investment-cash since listed firms obtained lower cost of capitals available for future investments. In all, the bidirectional capital impropriation significantly affects the capital investment and sensitivity of investment-cash flow of listed firms, and different direction of capital impropriation will lead to different investment efficiency. We also should note that capital impropriation is not always necessarily a bad thing since it may reduce the overinvestment sometimes.