Financing decision is one of the important areas in managerial finance to increase shareholders’ wealth. Firms can use either debt or capital to finance their business. This study uses two-stage least squares model and examines the impact of foreign directors as moderating variable on the relationship between firm debt structure and shareholders’ returns of quoted multinational firms in Nigeria. Secondary data were extracted from the annual reports of six (6) most active quoted multinationals firms on the Nigerian Stock Exchange for the period 2006 to 2018. After running the OLS regression, a robustness test was conducted for validity of statistical inferences. A multiple regression was employed using PCSE regression model and FGLS regression model respectively for model one and two. The study documents in model one that debt to total asset has a positive and significant effect on shareholder returns while debt to equity and debt to turnover have negative and significant effect on shareholders returns though foreign director has no significant impact of shareholder returns. The model two, revealed the moderating role of foreign director, where the debt to equity has a positive and significant effect on shareholder returns while debt to turnover revealed a negative and significant effect on the return to shareholder funds. Though, debt to total asset has no significant effect on shareholders returns. In line with the findings, the study recommended that board of directors of the study firms should ensure that listed multinationals firms in Nigeria should appoint foreigner in their board composition so that the interest of various shareholder’s would be fully protected by avoiding unnecessary debt and proper management of the company debt file and sales improve upon their turnover and reduction of unnecessary cost.
Keywords: Multinational Firms, Nigeria, debt structure, shareholder returns
