Capital Structure and Firm Performance Nexus in Nigeria: A Case Study of Aluminum Extrusion Company PLC (Published)
This study investigated the link between capital structure and firm performance in Nigeria using Aluminum Extrusion Company PLC (ALEX), a company listed under the Basic material sector of the Nigerian Stock Exchange as a case study. The study adopted return on capital employed as proxy for firm performance (response variable), while capital structure components such as debt to equity ratio, debt to capital employed ratio and equity to capital employed ratio were used as the explanatory variables. Secondary data were collected from the annual published financial reports of the company for the period 2009 to 2018. The study employ descriptive statistics and multiple regression technique based on the E- view 9.0 Software as the methods of data analysis. The results revealed that debt to equity ratio has significant positive effect on return on capital employed, debt to capital employed ratio has negative influence on return on capital employed and equity to capital employed ratio has no influence on return on capital employed. Overall, capital structure has no significant effect (at 5% level) on firm performance. Based on the findings, the study recommended among others that the company should finance her activities with retained earnings and use debt as the last option as this is in agreement with the perking Order theory; that the indirect effect of capital structure on firm performance be analyzed by future researchers and that the company managers are advised to be extremely conscious in the use of debt financing as an option in their capital mix up to the optimal limits, as debt to equity ratio provides positive effect though not significant on performance.
Keywords: Capital, Debt, Equity, Firm, Performance, Returns, Structure, employed