The Effect of Capital Structure on Profitability of Energy American Firms

This paper empirically aims to analyze the effect of capital structure on financial performance. Two main sets of variables were used: For profitability, return on assets (ROA) as the ratio of net income to total assets, and return on equity (ROE) as the ratio of net income to total shareholders’ equity were adopted as a proxy for financial performance; and to indicate capital structure, short-term debt, long-term debt, total debt, debt to equity ratio, and firm’s size were used. A sample of 30 Energy American firms for a period of nine years from 2005 – 2013 was considered. Secondary data were collected from financial statements which were taken from Mergent online. The data were analyzed by using Smart PLS (Partial Least Square) version 3. Multiple regressions indicated that 10% of ROE and 34% of ROA were predicted by the independent variables. Findings also presented that the total debt has a significant negative impact on ROE and ROA, while size in terms of sales has significantly negative effect only on ROE of the American firms. However, a short debt significantly has a positive influence on ROE. An insignificant either negative or positive relationship was observed between long term debt, debt to equity and size in terms of total assets and profitability. A generalization of the results is limited because of the small sample size. For future research, the author suggests addressing a longer period of time with a large sample size of firms. It would be more accurate if future studies included more independent variables such as taxation and concentration.