The impact of corporate diversification on liquidity management: Evidence from lines of credit
Christina Atanasova and
Frederick H. Willeboordse
Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, 2025, vol. 101, issue C
Abstract:
We examine the impact of organizational structure on corporate liquidity, specifically focusing on how business diversification influences firms’ choice between bank lines of credit and cash holdings. Using a large sample of publicly traded companies from both developed and emerging markets, we observe that diversified firms operating across multiple industries (segments) tend to rely more heavily on bank lines of credit than their more focused counterparts. We find that lower correlations in the investment opportunities across business segments and higher correlations between investment opportunities and cash flows are associated with a greater reliance on bank lines of credit as a source of corporate liquidity. Moreover, for Emerging Market firms that face binding financial constraints, the effect of diversification on liquidity management is stronger. Our findings do not support the notion that this behavior is driven by diversified firms with lower aggregate risk or better corporate governance. Instead, the results are consistent with the monitored insurance hypothesis, where diversified firms with lower liquidity risk and hedging requirements use bank lines of credit more extensively.
Keywords: Cash holdings; Bank lines of credit; Corporate diversification; Coinsurance; Liquidity risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 G31 G32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042443125000290
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:intfin:v:101:y:2025:i:c:s1042443125000290
DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102139
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money is currently edited by I. Mathur and C. J. Neely
More articles in Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().