An Empirical Study On The Impact Of Capital Structure On The Performance Of Listed Electric Power Companies

Capital structure is always an important content of modern financial studies. Capital structure optimization for enterprises is of great significance; it can reduce the cost of capital and control financial risks effectively, thus increasing the value of companies. However, current domestic research on capital structure of listed companies tends to be confined to asset-liability ratio and long-term debt ratio or other certain index. On rhe other hand, researches on corporate performance mostly focus on the use of traditional accounting theory and accounting income index. But traditional income index is not only easily to manipulate, but also cannot measure the companies’real operating performance truly, accurately and objectively.According to the analysis above, this paper firstly defines the connotation of the capital structure and corporate operating performance, and select the EVA ratio as the alternative indicator of business performance. EVA ratio will be more accurate and appropriate to reflect the companies’performance and value-creating ability.This paper starts from the researches on the present situation of capital structure of listed companies in electric power industry, analyzing the cause of the current capital structure, and selects the debt structure, ownership structure and other factors may affect the companies operating performance. Then,this paper uses factor analysis method to analyse, extracting six factors. After the extraction and definition, the six factors are carried out as the independent variables and used in the multiple regression analysis for EVA ratio. Through the empirical study, it comes out thatthe long-term debt ratio is positively correlated with EVA ratio and the short-term bank loan debt ratio is negatively related to EVA ratio; ownership concentration and corporate performance have positive correlation, and liquid shareholding propotion has a positive correlation with the companies’performance. The proportion of state-owned shares is negatively related to EVA ratio. Lastly, according to the results, this paper puts forward the corresponding countermeasures to optimize the capital structure of listed companies, in oder to improve the corporate performance for the electric power industry.