Kicking Maturity Down the Road: Early Refinancing and Maturity Management in the Corporate Bond Market

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Xu, Qiping
• 署名单位: University of Notre Dame
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF FINANCIAL STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0893-9454
• DOI: 10.1093/rfs/hhx116
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 3061
• 关键词: debt maturity; credit; RISK; finance; INVESTMENT

摘要

This paper examines debt maturity management through early refinancing, where firms retire their outstanding bonds before the due date and simultaneously issue new ones as replacements. Speculative-grade firms frequently refinance their corporate bonds early to extend maturity, particularly under accommodating credit supply conditions, leading to a procyclical maturity structure. In contrast, investment-grade firms do not manage their maturity in the same manner. I exploit the protection period of callable bonds to show that the maturity extension is not driven by unobservable confounding factors. The evidence is consistent with speculative-grade firms dynamically managing maturity to mitigate refinancing risk.