Capital structure in India: implications for the development of bond markets.
Chauhan, Gaurav Singh
Abstract
Unlike many other emerging markets, debt ratios in India remain low
and falling over the years. While low debt ratios can be a conscious
choice of firms in growth phase, firms in India seems to be deprived of
the availability of credit through poor credit market infrastructure and
its development. Low debt ratios coupled with higher tax rates entail
higher tax payments by the firms in India. More importantly, government
seems to rely heavily on these tax receipts to finance its fiscal
expenditure. While development of debt markets would benefit the firms,
it would seriously distort the magnitude of fiscal deficit in India. The
article here highlights this moral hazard with government of India to
develop debt markets in India.
Keywords: debt ratios; fiscal deficit; corporate financing; value
creation; tax benefits.
JEL Classifications: E60; E62; G32; G38
1. INTRODUCTION
One of the core agenda in the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget
Management (FRBM) Act, 2003 is to improve the management of public funds
and achieve a sustainable level of fiscal deficit in India. While FRBM
speaks of the responsibilities of the government to finance its
expenditures largely through its receipts, it remains silent on the
optimality of the ways to incur expenses and earn revenues. Quite
pertinently, a wholesome legislative provision for sustain ability of
fiscal deficit, in spirit, would certainly take care of the stability of
the means of financing the deficit.
Unfolding the data available on fiscal deficit, the break-up of
government receipts shows that the percentage contribution of corporate
taxes becomes significant overtime. Corporate taxes as a percentage of
total government receipts were 7.51% in 1992, which steadily rose to
29.08% in 2012. Figure 1 shows the trend. While increased share of
corporate taxes in total receipts may be an outcome of growing corporate
sector overtime, it becomes imperative to systematically understand the
source of this buoyancy. This is because the stability of fiscal deficit
cannot be ascertained if the increased share of corporate taxes is not a
natural evolution or could not be fully explained by growing corporate
sector.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Important determinants of the magnitude of taxes paid by the firms
are their operating income, interest expenses and tax rates. While tax
payments would increase with higher earnings and tax rates, firms could
save taxes by incurring higher interest expenses for their borrowings.
If increasing tax receipts in government exchequer is due to growing
corporate sector or increased earnings alone, one would expect the ratio
of tax paid to operating income to remain stable overtime, at a constant
tax rate. However, the ratio of taxes paid by firms to their operating
income increased almost consistently since 1992 in India. Importantly,
tax rates in India remained fairly stable over this period. This is
possible when firms would choose to incur lesser interest expenses owing
to lesser borrowings as they tend to grow further.
While there are several determinants which describe the optimal
debt capacity of firms, any choice of capital structure (1) or leverage
by a firm is a conscious choice of increasing value for its investors to
the fullest extent possible. In other words choosing low or high
leverage must be accompanied by increasing profitability or higher value
creation by any firm.
In Indian context, we see a trend where debt ratios (2) of firms
show a steady decline over a period of time. Interestingly, such a trend
is quite contrary to the trend in other emerging markets (3) where debt
ratios are consistently increasing over time. While region specific
characteristics might suggest varying pattern of debt ratios suited to
their firm's requirements, our preliminary analysis in this article
suggest that declining debt ratios in India is probably not supported by
increasing profitability of firms. Moreover, other firm level
characteristics which seem to explain increasing debt ratios in other
emerging markets show a similar pattern, on an average, in India too.
This suggests that low debt ratios in India may be primarily due to the
restricted availability of credit to the firms. Such availability, in
part, is attributable to the repressive policy regime of underdeveloped
credit markets in India.
A critical underpinning of the source of low debt ratios in India
is important in order to appreciate the sensitivity of government
receipts to the change in leverage structures of the firms in India.
Further, non-endogenous choice of leverage for firms in India will have
adverse implications regarding the sustainability of fiscal deficit and
the competitiveness of Indian firms globally. Low debt ratios imply
higher tax receipts for government which therefore faces a moral hazard
to develop bond markets in India. Further, restricted credit to Indian
firms looms large for their global competitiveness at a time where
Indian markets are increasingly accessible to foreign players through
measures such as systematic increase in FDI limits for several sectors
including retail.
In this article we will take a closer look into the issues
discussed above as follows. Section 2 describes the theoretical
discussion on choice of leverage structure by firms and empirical
findings associated with major determinants of leverage. Section 3
elicits trends in the leverage structure and its determinants identified
in section 2 for Indian corporate sector. This section explores the
possible explanation for low debt ratios in India due to the plausible
determinants of capital structure. Section 4, will highlight development
of debt markets and availability of credit in India. Section 5, will
take up important implications for low debt ratios in India. Section 6
provides the conclusion.
2. CHOICE OF CAPITAL STRUCTURE
According to Modigliani and Miller (1958), under certain conditions
where there are no taxes and there is no asymmetry of information,
capital structure does not matter for the value created by firms.
However, in absence of such idealistic conditions, we see that firms
devote excessive attention to the design of their capital structures.
Firms can attribute their choice of capital structure to several
factors. A prime reason for firms to choose different claims for their
investors is to reduce agency costs involved with management (4). Owing
to information advantage, managers may not exert adequate efforts so as
to maximize value of the firm or its investors. Governance structures
are enabled by issuing variety of claims. These claims are such that
they can monitor or occasionally intervene in the management of firms.
Other considerations in the literature (5) which describes the
choice between debt and equity claims relates to corporate taxes,
non-debt tax shields, size of the firm, nature of assets, profitability,
availability of debt, growth opportunities and degree of investor's
protection or enforcement of financial contracts. While there are
several other variables being tested across time, the above mentioned
factors are some of the determinants which have got considerable and
consistent empirical support in the literature.
Interest payments on debt claims are tax deductible in most of the
countries. Thus, for the same level of operating income a firm having
more debt would save more in taxes and hence more can be returned to the
owners i.e. equity holders. This in turn leads to higher profitability
for the owners as measured by return on equity. However, excessive debt
can further lead to bankruptcy owing to the fixed nature of the claims.
Thus, solely based on tax considerations, there is a tradeoff in
choosing debt for more value creation for owners and the probability of
default by a firm (6). In fact, theory suggests an optimal debt level
where the value of the firm is maximized. The tradeoff between tax
savings and financial distress is mentioned in the literature as static
tradeoff hypothesis. Notwithstanding this tradeoff, we can generally
infer that higher tax rates would induce firms to take on more debt for
the same probability of default. Literature does provide evidences for
such inferences. For example, Desai et al. (2004) document that higher
local tax rates are associated with higher debt ratios in multinational
firms.
Firms can alternatively save taxes by incurring heavy depreciation,
depletion, and amortization expenses for their assets. In such a case,
these expenses tend to substitute interest payments (7) by firms and
hence a negative relationship between the presence of non-debt tax
shields and debt ratios can be expected (8). However, empirical tests on
the relationship between the two variables seem to show inconclusive or
mixed results. Some of the studies show insignificant or even positive
relationship between these two factors (9).
Empirically it has been found that larger firms have lower
probability of default and are also able to economize on cost of
financial distress in case of default. Further, asymmetry of information
is less critical for large firms as compared to the smaller ones. This
suggests that larger firms tend to have higher debt in their books. A
positive relationship between size and debt is documented in Marsh
(1982), Rajan and Zingales (1995), and Frank and Goyal (2003), while
Titman and Wessels (1988) find a negative relationship.
Nature of firm's assets or their degree of tangibility also
seems to have significant effect on debt ratios for firms. Since
tangible asset can well serve as good collateral, larger tangible assets
in a firm is associated with higher debt ratios. A positive correlation
between asset tangibility and debt has been shown in several studies
including Scott (1977), Friend and Lang (1988), Harris and Raviv (1990),
Rajan and Zingales (1995), and Frank and Goyal (2003).
As per the pecking order hypothesis of Myers and Majluf (1984),
owing to informational asymmetries firms will turn to debt financing
when internal equity is insufficient. Thus, following this argument,
profitability seems to be negatively associated with debt ratios. On the
other hand, static trade-off theory of debt would suggest a reverse
pattern for debt ratios. According to the tradeoff argument, firms with
greater profitability would carry more debt. In addition, a positive
association between debt ratios and profitability can be expected
following the literature which describes debt as a disciplining device
for managers of the firms having higher free cash flows. In fact, Jensen
(1986) and Stulz (1990) show such relationship. While, the association
between debt ratios and profitability remains ambiguous, a negative
relationship is highlighted in number of studies including Titman and
Wessels (1988), Rajan and Zingales (1995), Fama and French (2002), and
Frank and Goyal (2003).
Firms with lot of growth opportunities are expected to retain low
debt ratios as debt restricts the flexibility needed to avail these
opportunities. Debt comes with several covenants which can deter firm to
take on the required level of risk, as debt holders do not reap any
upside gains by excessive risk taking while share proportionate losses
in case of default. Myers (1977) suggests that excessive leverage may
force firms to pass up profitable investment opportunities (see also
Stulz, 1990). It is also possible however, that financially constrained
firms with higher growth opportunities will issue debt prior to issuing
equity due to informational asymmetries. While a positive relationship
between growth opportunities and debt ratio is highlighted in Kremp et
al. (1999), negative association is documented in Rajan and Zingales
(1995), Fama and French (2002), and Frank and Goyal (2003).
Apart from factors considered above which are endogenous to the
firms, debt ratios might be influenced by exogenous factors also.
Importantly, availability of credit through alternate means including
debt markets is a significant factor determining debt ratios for a firm.
Credit market development in a country is expected to be positively
associated with debt ratios, while a negative relationship is associated
between debt ratios and stock market development (Booth et al., 2001).
However, Demirguc-Kunt and Maksimovic (1996) find that stock market
development is associated with lower debt ratios in developed markets
but not emerging markets. Further, Edison et al. (2002) show that the
ease of availing credit through foreign borrowings might have
significant impact on debt ratios.
Another important consideration in choosing debt ratios is the
enforcement of financial contracts or degree of investor's
protection in case of bankruptcy. Even if we have well documented
bankruptcy procedures, it is often noticed that bankruptcy laws, even in
developed countries, may be time consuming and lax in implementation. In
some cases, they could lead to reshuffling of claims, as they might be
biased towards senior or junior claim holders.
3. CORPORATE FINANCING TRENDS IN INDIA
In India we see a discernible deleveraging trend in the capital
structure of firms. Ratios such as debt to equity and debt to asset show
consistent decline since liberalization of economy in 1992. We have
analyzed annual data for non-financial firms in India from 1992 to 2012.
The data being captured form databases of Centre for Monitoring of
Indian Economy (CMIE). We chose non-financial firms as they being the
major users of financial markets, would shape the real demand for
different claims such as debt and equity. Figure 2 shows such a trend in
total equity to asset and total borrowings to asset ratios.
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
A striking feature of this deleveraging trend is that most of the
assets are increasingly being financed by reserves and surpluses or
internal financing. Figure 3 shows break-up of equity capital into
capital raised (CR) and reserves and surpluses (RS) and their ratio to
total assets.
[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]
Firms, in general, do prefer financing from internal resources,
i.e. reserves and surpluses, as far possible because accessing capital
market is extremely costly and uncertain. This is quite a finding in
developed countries too and a major postulate of pecking order theory by
Myers and Majluf (1984). However, more importantly we see that share of
internal financing rose from about 15% in 1992 to above 33% in 2012.
This may be possible if firms are facing increasing growth opportunities
or profitability is increasing so that investors are allowing firms to
use internal funds. Alternatively, this is also possible if external
financing is difficult to avail. Firms increasingly would use internal
funds because availability of funds may not be adequate or is costly.
Growth opportunities, if any, for firms would lead them to choose
lesser debt on account of flexibility constraints put up by debt on
firms. Therefore, debt ratios increases as growth opportunities become
limited. To capture growth opportunities we look for trend in market to
book equity capital (M/B) ratio as has been used in many studies
previously. Another proxy used for growth opportunities is the ratio of
capital expenditures (10) to total asset or sales for firms. Figure 4a
and 4b shows trend in these two ratios.
Increasing growth opportunities can be inferred for firms if M/B
and capital expenditure increases in proportion over time. However, as
we can see while M/B ratio does not show any discernible trend, capital
expenditure to asset ratio has declined over time, although not
steadily. M/B ratio declined from 2.23 to 1.85 from 1992 to 2012.
Capital expenditure to asset ratio has declined from 8.57% to -3.69%,
with an average of 7% from 1992-2012. The average for last 5 years
excluding 2012 (where capital expenditure is negative) comes out to be
6.14% from 2007-2011. Looking into such trends, growth opportunities
seems to be limited at best and do not really warrants a decrease in
debt ratios over time.
[FIGURE 4a OMITTED]
[FIGURE 4b OMITTED]
To capture profitability, we look into number of profitability
measures such as operating income to asset ratio (PBDITA/A), operating
income to sales (PBDITA/ S), return on equity (ROE) and operating income
to total capital employed (PBDITA/ TC). Figure 5 shows trend in these
ratios.
[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]
While there is no definite trend in any of these ratios,
profitability does not really show marked improvement over the years
which could warrant a strict decline in debt ratios over time.
Profitability for Indian firms, as expected to be for any emerging
markets, is not showing any increasing trend over years. As firms mature
in emerging markets, profitability is expected to decline. This is in
line with the alignment of emerging markets with developed world and
subsequently their rise as developed markets themselves.
Further, while nothing conclusive can be said about increasing use
of internal financing by looking into the trend for growth opportunities
and profitability, we need to closely observe the availability of funds
for the firms in India. We will try and do this in Section 4 which looks
into the availability of credit in India in details.
Now, let us turn into the share of borrowings in financing assets
for the firms. Figure 6 shows the trend in borrowings from financial
institutions and banks.
[FIGURE 6 OMITTED]
Important is to see the increasing role of banks in external
financing. Share of bank borrowings as a percentage of total assets
(BB/A) has increased almost steadily from about 8.74% from 1992 to 15%
in 2012. On the contrary, share of borrowings from other financial
institution, apart from banks, as a percentage of assets (FI/A) has
declined almost steadily from 7.72% in 1992 to 1.59% in 2012.
Interestingly, share of external finance from all the financial
institutions including banks (AFI/ A) as a percentage of assets have
remained stagnant at an average of about 15%. Further, there is no
definite trend showing any increase or decrease in these total
borrowings over the years. This shows that banks just tend to replace
the funds earlier being provided by other financial institutions. Thus,
overall no additional capital is being provided by financial
institutions jointly in India. This may be partly due to the
reorganization of large industrial credit institutions as commercial
banks, for example ICICI has been reorganized as ICICI bank.
Apart from this, share of external finance by any other means
remain dismal for Indian corporate sector. Figure 7 shows trend in
borrowings through sources other than financial institutions.
[FIGURE 7 OMITTED]
Interestingly, share of bonds and debentures (BD/A) declined from
about 7% in 1992 to about 3% in 2012; share of inter-corporate loans
(ICL/A) remains stagnant at an average of 2.17% and share of commercial
papers remain insignificant at an average of 0.18% from 1992 to 2012.
Further, owing to restricted international capital flows, foreign
commercial borrowings, which can replace domestic debt issuances,
remained subtle. The ratio of foreign commercial borrowings as a
percentage of total assets declines from 7.2% in 1992 to 5.06% in 2012.
However, there is no discernible trend in this component also. Thus,
foreign borrowings may have only marginally contributed towards the
availability of debt in India.
Looking into the statistics above, we see that role of external
financing is shrinking for Indian corporate sector. We now will focus
into the trend in other theoretical factors that could determine
leverage for firms in India. As discussed in section 2 above, higher tax
rate induces higher leverage for firms. However, if we compare the
corporate income tax rates for several emerging markets (Table 1), we
see that firms in India faces very high tax rates and yet debt ratios
show declining trend for them.
Another important reason for low leverage as cited in section 2 may
be increasing non-debt tax shields. This can be defined as share of
depreciation and amortization expenses as a percentage of operating
income (PBDITA). Figure 8a and 8b show trend in these two ratios.
Depreciation expenses as a percentage of operating income, although does
not show any definite trend, certainly does not increase and rather has
dropped from over 28% in 1992 to less than 23% in 2012. Amortization
expenses as a percentage of operating income has also declined from
1.36% in 1992 to 0.13% in 2012.
[FIGURE 8a OMITTED]
[FIGURE 8b OMITTED]
As discussed above, size of the firms are positively correlated
with leverage. Size as measured by total assets of non-financial firms
when compared to total GDP (A/GDP) has increased significantly from over
25% in 1992 to about 125% in 2012. Alternatively, size as measured by
total sales of non-financial firms when compared to total GDP (S/GDP)
has also increased significantly from 19.8% in 1992 to about 92% in
2012. Figure 9 shows trend in aggregate size of the firms in India. Here
also, we see that despite of increasing size, Indian firms are less
levered.
[FIGURE 9 OMITTED]
Regarding asset tangibility, while we can see an increase in
intangible assets as a percentage of total assets, the magnitude itself
is very small compared to total asset. Figure 10a shows such a trend in
net intangible assets over time. Net intangible assets for non-financial
firms rose from 0.05% in 1992 to 2.19% in 2012. The average net
intangible asset over this period is only 0.75%. Further, there is no
conclusive evidence for tangibility of asset going down over the year.
Specifically this ratio does not show any trend as such. Figure 10b
shows trend in net tangible fixed assets (11) as a percentage of total
assets. The average of the ratio of net tangible fixed asset to total
asset is 32.8% over 1992 to 2012. Looking onto the data of asset
tangibility, it is difficult to conclude that debt ratios may be
declining due to increase in intangible assets.
As we see, endogenous factors for firms considered so far may not
able to comprehensively determine the low leverage for firms in India.
Thus, we shall now turn our attention towards exogenous factor
pertaining to availability of funds for firms in India. Although we see
very buoyant stock markets in India, as in other emerging markets,
figure 3 shown above tells us that capital raised through equity
issuances (or book value of capital raised through equity) as a
percentage of total assets steadily declines from 14% in 1992 to 6.8% in
2012. That means equity issuances as a source of finance is not quite a
preferred mode of external financing in India. The increased share of
equity capital in financing assets for the firms is primarily due to
more and more use of the reserves and surpluses or the internal funds.
Thus, role of credit markets as an alternative source of external
finance become crucial for firms. In the next section we will try and
explore how debt ratios might have impacted through credit market
development in India.
[FIGURE 10a OMITTED]
[FIGURE 10b OMITTED]
4. DEVELOPMENT OF CREDIT MARKETS IN INDIA
As seen from the data on borrowings above, while banks in India
remained the sole vehicle for credit, the grim state-of-the-affairs in
corporate borrowings from nonbanks can be attributed to several factors
which somehow indicated towards the underdevelopment of debt markets in
India.
One can readily observe a buoyant and happening equity market in
India; however, the bond market is yet to see its potential as an
alternate source of capital or investment. As per the World Federation
of Exchanges, the equity markets in India stands in top 5 countries in
terms of number of trades per day; in top 20 in terms of traded volumes
and in top 10 in terms of market capitalization. On the other hand bond
markets in India seem to be struggling with basic issues concerned with
key market microstructure such as liquidity and price discovery. Unlike,
most other nations, market capitalization of secondary (12) equity
market in India is higher as compared to debt markets. Interestingly,
two-third of market capitalization in debt market is accounted for by
central government securities only. Further, low level of market
activities are reflected in debt markets by their total turnover which
is only about 20% of the total turnover of equity and bond markets
combined together. Average turnover per day for debt markets remains at
Rs. 16 billion as compared to average turnover per day of Rs. 68 billion
for equity markets in August 2012.
Interestingly, bond markets in India seem to be completely
dominated by government securities and turnover in corporate securities
remains marginal at best. Almost all the activities in secondary market
transactions are actually overwhelmed by the share of government
securities. Turnover of corporate bonds as a percentage of total
turnover is 8.85% in August 2012. Average turnover per day turns out be
Rs 1.43 billion for corporate bonds as compared to Rs. 10.80 billion for
government securities. Market capitalization of corporate bonds as a
percentage of total market capitalization of Wholesale Debt Market (WDM)
segment at NSE is 4.95% as compared to 64% for central government
securities in August 2012.
For international comparison, as quoted in Raghvan and Sarwono
(2012), the value of outstanding government bonds in India was 39.5% of
GDP as of 2010 and compares favorably with other Asian countries such as
China (27.6%) and South Korea (47.2%). The value of corporate bond
outstanding in India however was only 1.6% of GDP in 2010 compared to
Malaysia (27%) and South Korea (37.8%) at the end of 2010. Despite
similar growth environment, India has surprisingly lagged behind in
developing corporate bond markets.
The observed activities in government securities market further
needs to be seen in light of the fact that the current magnitude of
government securities market come into existence due to heavy borrowings
by government to finance the fiscal deficit. Financing of fiscal deficit
through market borrowings increased substantially over the years.
Average share of financing of gross fiscal deficit through market
borrowing from 1992 to 2012 stands at 60.43%; average share since 2006
stands at 86.23% and share of financing through borrowing in fiscal
2011-12 stands at 92.78% of gross fiscal deficit. Figure 11 shows trend
in market borrowings as a percentage of gross fiscal deficit (13).
[FIGURE 11 OMITTED]
However, market microstructure even in government securities market
has not developed with the pace at which the fiscal deficit and hence
the market capitalization grew over time. Liquidity and participation in
government securities is not very encouraging either. Top 5 central
government securities constitute more than 85% of turnover in government
securities and more than 30% in total turnover including all the
securities in August 2012. On the participants' side too, top 5
market participants, which are essentially commercial banks, constitutes
more than 83% of total turnover in August 2012.
Moreover, the picture posed above would have at least provided some
confidence in government securities market, if participation in such
markets would have been fairly liberal and without any repressive
constraints. However, bulk of the participation in government securities
comes from commercial banks and insurance companies, which owns more
than two-third of total outstanding government securities. Further, such
holding comes out through repressive government intervention to hold
such securities (14). For example, despite uncertain inflation
forecasting, government bonds of 30 years maturity are floated by
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and banks were asked to buy such securities.
This hampers true price discovery even in government security markets.
The state of debt markets in India is alarming given the fact that
growing corporate and infrastructure demand for funds in India requires
a stable alternate source of domestic funding. As per the last planning
commission (2007-2012) workings, the estimated infrastructure financing
were estimated to be about USD 500 billion up to 2012 and would remain
strong at about USD 700 billion in the next five year plan for 2012-17.
The generic development of the political economy in most countries would
indicate that increasing risk aversion of banks, as understood by
critical prudential regulation, might loom large for developing
economies such as India, if alternate source of funding for firms are
not operationalized. Further, resilience of an economy during recessions
critically require alternate domestic source of funding. During low
economic activities, funding from banks cannot be relied upon due to
their excessive focus on managing credit quality, no matter whether the
deterioration in quality is due to systematic or firm specific factors.
Even large corporate houses in India seem to rely on funding from
banks when they are capable of raising debt on their own. This might
primarily be due to the tradeoff between cost of capital raised and cost
of issuance of securities is not favorable for them in India. This has
serious consequence of squeezing credit for small and mid-cap firms,
which has no other alternate source of financing apart from banks.
Among several other deterrents to bond market development (15) is
the issue of investor's participation. Banks, financial
institutions, insurance companies, pension and provident funds, other
institutional and corporate investors seemingly form the base of
investors for corporate bonds worldwide. However, what is interesting in
India is that participation from conventional institutional investors
such as insurance companies, pension funds and banks are rather bleak.
This is primarily due to excessive and inordinate regulations posed on
them (16). For instance, insurance companies can keep bonds which are
rated AA or lower at a maximum limit of 25% of their portfolio values.
Further, these companies, along with banks and other financial
institutions, can invest only up to 10% of the total funds collected in
corporate bonds and that too of investment grade only. Adding to this,
regulation requires that such bonds when purchased should largely be
kept till maturity.
Historically, high domestic savings rates have been the strength of
Indian economy. Despite this, the participation of retail investors is
non-existent in India and has not been encouraged through any policy
frameworks (17). Retail participation, as a fraction of total investment
in corporate securities, seems to be low even in developed economies.
However, such low fractional participation rates in developed markets
are partially due to the fact that fractional institutional investment
is very high in such bonds, which is not the case in India.
Institutional participation itself is not very encouraging in India.
Moreover, such participation by retail investors in developed markets is
significant when compared to equity market participation. Participation
in corporate debt by retail investors enables them to diversify their
portfolios to a greater extent to manage risk exposures for their
investments.
While there are not enough innovative instruments to support the
fragile corporate debt market, one cannot even find the much needed
support for active exposures in interest rate derivatives in India (18).
Despite the fact that interest rate futures being formally launched in
the markets way back in 2003, activity seems to be non-existent even
today, owing to lack of variety in instruments and lack of critical
participation from diverse agents. This critically undermines the
possibility of managing the risk exposure by primary dealers as interest
rates remains quite volatile in India. This leads to unwarranted risk
aversion which further hampers the true price discovery in the markets.
Moreover, absence of such critical supporting instruments for primary
dealers leads them to provide liquidity at higher costs.
Features such as stamp duties are levied differentially at state
levels and also between players (19). Such taxes increase the cost of
transactions and hence financing. Firms are thus taxed for entering into
financing transactions over and above the taxes they pay for their
incomes.
Notwithstanding the debate on improving the market microstructure
of corporate debt markets, an important issue for stabilizing the supply
of credit is to secure creditors in the event of default. The modalities
of recovery of assets of failed firms remain lengthy and costly in
India. Defaulted firms were reported at Board for Industrial and
Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) and more recently to the Asset
Reconstruction Company of India, Ltd. (ARCIL) and the final settlement
of recoveries can take from five to seven years. A remarkable
improvement in creditors' rights is enthused through the
Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of
Security Interest (SARFAESI) Act of 2002, where secured creditors are
given the right to take possession of assets and sell them in case of
default by the firms. However, SARFAESI provides these rights to secured
creditors only and there is not much to offer for unsecured creditors.
This is important and concerning given the extensive and much sought
after participation of unsecured creditors in corporate debt markets.
Information dissemination is another challenge in emerging markets
to develop capital markets. Banks in India share proprietary data on
defaulting firms with a credit information bureau called the Credit
Information Bureau of India, Ltd. (CIBIL). Although, banks can access
this database, it is not accessible to non-bank entities. Such skewness
in information sharing further worsens the price discovery mechanism in
corporate debt markets in India.
In order to appreciate the issue of underdeveloped bond markets in
India, not much has been done through setting up of intellectual forums
or administrative committees by government directly. Among those rare
instances, Government of India has constituted a committee in 2003 under
the chairmanship of Dr. R H Patil, founder of the National Stock
Exchange, to study the shortcomings of corporate debt markets and to
recommend ways and means to establish a buoyant market in India. The
committee has submitted the report in year 2005, where most of the
recommendations were approved by the government in 2006. Even after six
year of such approval not much could be done to implement measures
suggested by the committee (20). From above discussion we can infer that
development of debt market in India would require not only a wholesome
understanding and coordination between various stakeholders but also it
requires a serious political will.
5. IMPLICATIONS OF LOW DEBT RATIOS IN INDIA
If firms would choose low leverage voluntarily, their profitability
should increase somehow. However, profitability ratios indicated above
do not really show this pattern. To capture this reduction we first
highlight the effective taxes paid by the firms for a given operating
income over the years. Figure 12 shows a trend where effective taxes
(referred as corporate taxes as a percentage of operating income) rise
almost consistently from 9.11% in 1992 to 15.11% in 2012. Thus, firms on
an average are paying more taxes for a given level of operating income.
That would mean that less value is created for their investors. An
indirect implication for this is that investors are less keen to invest
in firms due to lesser returns or profitability. This induces a
discouraging investment climate for private investments in India.
On the other hand, Government gains from such rise in effective
taxes. Important is to analyze the fiscal deficit position given the low
leverage structure by firms in India. As noted in Figure 1, corporate
taxes contribute 29.08% to the total government receipts in 2012. This
is a significant increase from 7.51% in 1992. As argued in this paper,
this increase in share seems not to be a natural outcome of growing
corporate sector but increasing tax burden for firms. The stability of
fiscal deficit is, therefore, threatened given government is increasing
its reliance on a source of finance which comes as a result of market
distortions. In other words, government receipts probably thrive by not
providing a level playing field to corporate sector in terms of their
ability to raise capital through debt markets.
[FIGURE 12 OMITTED]
An interesting dimension to this analysis is the impact on fiscal
deficit by rationalizing the tax payments which might emerge when firms
are able to raise optimal debt for themselves. If effective taxes,
measured as tax paid as a percentage of operating income, is reduced by
1%, from the existing levels of about 15%, the government receipts will
reduce by Rs. 265 billion and fiscal deficit (21) will, therefore,
increase by the same amount. This is an increase of 132% in fiscal
deficit, given that the level of deficit currently is about Rs. 200
billion.
The current scenario looks like a moral hazard problem for
government where given the sensitivity of fiscal deficit to debt ratios
of the firm, government may not like to see debt ratios of the firm
going up due to development of credit markets. The analysis here
underscores the sustainability of government finances and also the
weakness in assuming its fiscal responsibilities as deemed in principle
through legislative measures such as FRBM Act, 2003.
Further such a proposition acts as a double whammy for the global
competitiveness of firms in India. Apart from not being able to raise
funds in international capital markets, firms in India are also not
being able to raise competitive finances domestically. Given that firms
are restrained to tap alternative and cheap source of capital when
compared to firms globally, it is imperative that they are sacrificing
their competitiveness internationally. This issue might cause a sense of
urgent attention when government seems to open up the markets
extensively for foreign players. A recent incidence is the issue of
retail FDI in India.
6. A WAY FORWARD
The discussion above about the current state of the affairs of
credit availability for firms in India highlights a potential moral
hazard for government to develop bond markets. However, it can be seen
positively as an opportunity for government to stimulate economy without
fiscal interventions in real terms. If credit markets could be developed
in India, it can somewhat substitute the fiscal stimulus provided by the
government to revive the real sector in Indian economy. Firms themselves
could get the necessary stimulus for private investments through
competitive capital markets.
A major concern for government here would be the drop in revenue.
To alleviate this, if we have sound credit markets in place, government
can systematically raise tax rates even further. On one hand, this will
increase the tax receipts for government and on the other, it will
stimulate firms to take on more debt to maintain same return on equity
for equity holders. An important caveat is the assumption that
increasing debt ratios are not increasing financial risk for firms
inordinately. A liquid market in corporate debt will be instrumental in
dealing with such inordinate risk taking by firms when investors will be
compensated fairly for risk taking.
For sufficient political and economic reasons though, the
suggestion for increasing tax rates might sound rather radical and
irrational given the already high tax structure in India. However, the
concern for drop in government receipts by developing credit markets may
not be realized practically. With sound availability of credit, firms
would increase their investments and hence their operating incomes
proportionately. Higher operating income would in turn provide higher
tax receipts to the government exchequer again. Raising tax revenue this
way will be more organic and aligned to welfare in the long run. This
collectively might resolve the issue of drop in government receipts from
corporate taxes and would also stimulate the investment climate in the
country. This in turn will improve the status quo of Indian firms
vis-a-vis foreign players. Fiscal deficits will now be more sustainable
and policies can be directed with much ease and relevance.
Further, notwithstanding any policy moves for developing credit
markets, government has to closely look and monitor other sources of
financing its expenditure, provided it wishes to bring in sustainability
to the fiscal deficit position in India. While, bringing in
sustainability is desired, a strong political will is required for
developing credit markets in India.
Notes
(1.) Capital structure choice here refers to the choice of the form
(claims like equity and debt) and quantity of its capital.
(2.) Debt ratio is defined as the ratio total borrowings to total
assets of a firm.
(3.) See Mitton (2007) for a discussion on increasing debt ratios
in emerging markets over time.
(4.) See Myers and Majluf (1984) for earliest discussions on agency
costs involved in capital structure choices.
(5.) See Harris and Raviv (1991), Rajan and Zingales (1995) and
Frank and Goyal (2003) for several determinants of capital structures.
(6.) See Scott (1972) and Kraus and Litzenberg (1973) for the
initial literature on "static tradeoff theory" relating tax
savings and financial distress by increased probability of failure for
firms. Also See Graham (2003) for a review of the literature on the
influence of taxes on capital structure choice.
(7.) DeAngelo and Masulis (1980) and Modigliani and Miller (1958)
show such substitutability.
(8.) Bowen, Daley, and Huber (1982) and Kim and Sorensen (1986)
show such negative relationship.
(9.) See Harris and Raviv (1991), Bradley et al. (1984),
MacKie-Mason (1990) and De Miguel and Pindado (2001) for such results.
(10.) Capital expenditure is estimated as change in gross fixed
assets.
(11.) Defined as the sum of net land, buildings, plant, machinery,
electrical installation, transport and communication equipments,
furniture and social amenities etc.
(12.) Secondary market activities are referred to from National
Stock Exchange (NSE), India.
(13.) Source RBI.
(14.) More on captive buyer story of government securities can be
looked into Shah, Thomas and Gorham (2008).
(15.) See Mitra (2009) for a critical highlight on corporate bond
market development in India.
(16.) See R H Patil committee (2003) recommendations on corporate
bond market development in India with regard to institutional
investors' participation.
(17.) Retail Debt market segment was formally launched at NSE in
2003, with a view that initially trading be allowed in government
securities and subsequently in phase wise development trading would be
allowed in other securities. Despite of the fact that number of trade
reported in 2003-04 was 912, trading is eventually evaporated from this
segment as there was no trade reported in the fiscal 2011-12.
(18.) No trade being reported in Interest rate futures for six out
of first eight months for year 2012 at NSE up to August 2012.
(19.) See Patil (2010) for discussion on stamp duty structure in
India.
(20.) See Patil (2010) for a commentary of the progress in
recommendations made to government of India.
(21.) Fiscal deficit here is measured as difference between total
government receipts and expenditures.
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GAURAV SINGH CHAUHAN, Indian Institute of Management Indore,
Prabandh Shikhar, Rau-Pithampur Road, Indore - 453331, MP (India),
E-Mail: gauraus@iimidr.ac.in; s.gaurav.c@gmail.com
Table 1
Corporate income tax rates *
Country Corporate Income
Tax Rates (2012)
Argentina 35
Brazil 34
Chile 18.5
China 25
Hong Kong 16.5
India 32.44
Indonesia 25
Israel 25
Jordan 14
Republic of Korea 24.2
Malaysia 25
Mauritius 15
Mexico 30
Nigeria 30
Philippines 30
Russia 20
Singapore 17
South Africa 34.55
Taiwan 17
Thailand 30
Turkey 20
Vietnam 25
Source: KPMG (#) includes duties, surcharges and additional cess