An Empirical Study on the Determinants of the Debt Repayment Capability of Shipping Firms in Recession

In this study, an empirical analysis of 55 ship finance cases executed by a specific ship finance bank from 2009 to 2016 during the recession period was conducted. The purpose of this study was to find the factors affecting changes in the debt performance of Korean shipping companies. The main factors were the loan nature (investment purpose, loan-to-value (LTV), syndicated loans, loan terms, put-option, balloon, and spread), financial nature (total assets turnover, net profit-to-sales ratio , debt ratio, quick ratio, total borrowing, bonds payable to total assets, interest expenses-to-sales ratio, debt service coverage ratio (DSCR), and total assets), and the company nature (company age, chief executive officer’s (CEO's) shares, and listing status). In this study, the factors affecting the debt repayment capability of domestic shipping companies (loan nature, financial nature, and company nature) were verified. The credit rating was used to measure the dependent variable, debt repayment ability. The variables of investment purpose, put-option, balloon, and spread in the loan nature, debt ratio in the financial nature, and the CEO's shares and company age in the company nature were found to be significant.