Comparative analysis of the debt maturing structure of the leading companies in the pulp and paper industry

Abstract

This paper analyzes the debt maturity structure of the leading Pulp & Paper companies, comparing the Brazilian ones to those of other countries. With the purpose of finding elements to explain the different maturities among the companies of the sample, it was analyzed some factors that has been pointed out by the literature as determinants of debt maturity structure. Data was obtained from the financial statements of 1995 and their notes published by each company. We find that profitable firms with assets that can be used as collateral have higher debt maturities. The results have also suggested that there is an inverse relation between debt maturity and non-debt tax shields. Besides, we expected that debt maturity was positively related to asset maturity, but it was found the opposite sign. We did also not obtain statistical support for the hypotheses that relates debt maturity to size and leverage. When the countries are compared, we can note the higher debt maturities of American and Canadian companies relating to Brazilian ones. The same happens to the companies from New Zealand and Singapore, although much more attention must be given to these latest results, once both of countries have presented only one observation to be studied.