Como os gestores de empresas brasileiras não listadas tomam suas decisões de estrutura e custo de capital

Abstract

Although theories of structure and cost of capital have existed since the 1950s, there is no theoretical consensus on which policy is the ideal capital structure or how much it will be applied in practice by managers. Most studies on how managers decide to finance and the assumptions they make to estimate the cost of capital focus on listed companies. This study, therefore, has the objective of presenting how the managers of unlisted Brazilian companies make their decisions on structure and cost of capital. The survey is conducted with 44 unlisted Brazilian companies and among the results, we note that companies, (1) the main differences between unlisted Brazilian companies and listed companies are: (a) a smaller percentage of unlisted companies know their cost of capital, (b) unlisted companies review their cost of capital more frequently, (c) a smaller percentage of unlisted companies use the WACC for their analysis, (d) most unlisted companies do not make adjustments to consider different rates for project analysis, (e) most unlisted companies use, as a premise for the risk-free rate, the Selic rate as opposed to most listed companies that use the US government bond and (f) unlisted Brazilian companies distribute all cash surplus after the necessary investments for the continuity and expansion of the operation; and (2) the potential existence of two conceptual errors: (a) use of a risk-free rate based on Brazilian parameters with the addition of the premium, which should be used only if the risk-free rate is an international parameter and (b) use of inflation differential adjustment, despite using the risk-free rate based on Brazilian parameters.