| In response to the financial risks that may be caused by the continuous increase in leverage ratio,the Central Economic Work Conference at the end of 2015 first proposed a "deleveraging" policy,and then the first meeting of the Central Financial and Economic Commission in April 2018 proposed the goal of "structural deleveraging".Driven by the above-mentioned policies,the rising trend of Chinese corporate leverage has been curbed.Manufacturing is a typical high-leverage industry and one of the important industries that implements the "deleveraging" policy.Since 2015,under the guidance of national macro policies,manufacturing companies have taken deleveraging actions.The implementation of deleveraging by enterprises can effectively reduce business risks,but whether deleveraging will affect the business performance of enterprises has always been controversial.In response to the above problems,this paper,on the basis of sorting out the literature and theories on the relationship between financial leverage and corporate performance,selects the financial data of China’s listed manufacturing companies from 2015 to 2020 as the research sample,and conducts research from theoretical and empirical perspectives.Firstly,based on the screening and sorting of data,through descriptive statistics and correlation analysis,we initially search for evidence of the relationship between deleveraging and corporate performance.Secondly,a theoretical analysis framework is established and quantitative empirical analysis is used to analyze whether deleveraging affects corporate performance,and the impact mechanism is tested from the perspectives of R&D intensity and capital utilization efficiency.Finally,a robustness test is carried out by replacing the explained variables and changing the sample size.In addition,considering different sub-sectors,deleveraging methods,and deleveraging speeds may also have different effects on corporate performance,further testing the differentiated characteristics of "deleveraging" policies affecting corporate performance.Based on the above analysis,this paper draws the following conclusions: Firstly,deleveraging has a promoting effect on the performance of Chinese manufacturing enterprises.Secondly,R&D intensity and capital utilization efficiency play a mediating effect in the process of deleveraging affecting enterprise performance.Thirdly,there is industry heterogeneity in the performance of enterprises by deleveraging,and the effect of promoting the performance of heavy-asset enterprises is more obvious.Fourthly,the way of deleveraging significantly affects the performance of enterprises,and deleveraging is carried out by increasing equity and market-based debt-to-equity swaps.It has a better promotion effect on corporate performance.Fifthly,there is a significant correlation between the speed of deleveraging and corporate performance,and the two are negatively correlated.Combined with the above conclusions,this paper finally put forward some suggestions on the deleveraging measures of manufacturing enterprises. |
