The dynamics of capital structure and heterogeneous systematic risk classes in Egypt

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine firms' strategies to change long‐ and short‐term debt financing in Egypt. It aims to examine a list of capital structure determinants that include the basic assumptions of the three well‐known theories of capital structure: tradeoff, pecking order, and free cash. Design/methodology/approach The paper utilizes the properties of partial adjustment model for three heterogeneous systematic risk classes: high, medium and low. The sensitivity analysis is carried out using the “extreme bound analysis”. Findings The results indicate that Egyptian firms adjust short‐ and long‐term debt according to the class of systematic risk; long‐term debt is a source of financing at all classes of systematic risk; firms have obvious tendency to extent short‐ to long‐term one; medium risk firms adjust long‐term debt according to the industry average debt, and depend heavily on long‐term debt financing; firms depend significantly and constantly on the liquidity position to adjust short‐term debt levels; and medium risk firms are relatively affected by the basic assumptions of free cash flow and low‐risk firms are relatively affected by the assumptions of the pecking order theory. Research limitations/implications In general, the results provide evidence that the three theories have transitory effect from developed markets to transitional markets. In addition, the firm‐specific variables (industry characteristic, size and time) provide an additional support to the robustness of the results. Originality/value Few, if any studies, have been carried out in Egyptian data.