Firms’ Response to Credit Supply: Evidence from Upsized Corporate Bond Offerings
研究了企业在债券发行过程中根据投资者需求增发债券的行为，发现增发带来的额外资金主要用于偿还银行贷款和增加现金持有，而非过度投资。
Firms often respond to information about investor demand, learned when underwriters build the book to place corporate bonds, by “upsizing” the offering amount. We examine the factors that predict two measures of realized credit supply (oversubscription and yield tightening) and show that the unexpected component of credit supply can explain firms’ upsizing decisions. Because firms’ fundamentals and need for capital are unchanged in the few hours of bookbuilding, upsizing provides a bond-level measure that can be used to study the impact of credit supply on postissuance leverage and investment. Firms use the sizeable additional proceeds to reduce bank debt and increase cash holdings; net increases in leverage are temporary for riskier issuers. Our evidence does not support concerns of overinvestment in periods of accommodative credit markets. This paper was accepted by Bo Becker, finance. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.00153 .