신용등급하락이 판관비 비율과 자산 효율성에 미치는 영향

The Impact of Bond Rating Downgrades on SG&A Ratio and Asset Turnover Ratio

본 연구는 신용등급하락이 기업의 판관비 비율과 자산 효율성에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 2000년부터 2014년까지의 유가증권시장 상장기업 자료를 이용한 실증분석 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 전기의 신용등급하락은 당기의 판관비 비율 변화와 유의한 음(-)의 상관관계를 보였고, 당기 총자산회전율의 변화와는 유의하게 양(+)의 상관관계를 나타냈다. 이러한 결과는 신용등급이 하락한 회사의 경우 신용등급을 회복하기 하여 재량적 비용은 감소시키고, 자산을 효율적으로 운영하여 매출을 증대하려는 노력을 기울인다는 것으로 해석할 수 있다. 둘째, 이러한 관계는 투자등급과 투기등급의 경계인 신용등급 BBB그룹에서 가장 강하게 나타나, 신용등급이 하락할 경우 부담해야 할 원가(cost)가 가장 큰 기업이 특히 더 신용회복을 위해 노력하고 있음을 시사한다. 한편 판관비의 경우 절감하는 것이 효율성 증진 측면에서 기업에 유리한 반면, 미래의 기업가치 증진을 위해 요구되는 부분도 있다. 따라서 맥락에 따라 신용등급하락에 대한 판관비 조정 행태에 차이가 있을 수 있다. 이를 고려하여 표본을 전기의 판관비 비율로 구분하여 분석한 결과, 신용등급하락에 따른 판관비 비율 개선효과는 전기의 판관비 비율이 높은 그룹에서만 유의하게 나타났다. 본 연구를 통해 신용평가회사의 암묵적인 모니터링 역할이 존재하고, 실제로 기업의 전략에 영향을 미치고 있음을 살펴볼 수 있었으며, 이러한 발견은 학계뿐만 아니라 실무계, 투자자 및 감독기관 등 여러 이해관계자 집단에도 유용한 시사점을 제공할 수 있을 것으로 기대한다.

This study investigates the impact of credit rating downgrades on SG&A ratio and the asset efficiency of a company. Corporate bond issues are subject to have at least two ratings by the credit rating agencies. For the financial market participants, credit ratings appear to have substantial importance (Boot et al. 2006). First, the credit rating agencies may perform an implicit monitoring role. Typically, a credit rating agencies issue credit outlook or credit watch reviews before an immediate credit rating change when there is an event that may affect the credit rating of the company. Boot et al.(2006) argue that this monitoring process makes the company to exert an effort to improve the situation. Second, credit rating agencies influence investors investment decisions since a credit rating reflects a firm’s credit risks. This condition strengthens the implicit contract between the credit rating agencies and the firm. However, the literature also casts doubt on the importance of credit ratings. The disagreements arise from the question whether credit rating have a real informational content, since credit rating agencies do not directly invest a capital, but they just disclose ratings. This study extends the prior studies on this issue by examining the impact of credit rating downgrades on SG&A ratio and asset turnover ratio. We focus on these measures because, first, the financial ratios are the main determinants of the credit rating. Second, among the financial ratios, SG&A ratio and asset turnover ratio are factors which reflect management decision-making in relation to resource adjustment and investment. Thus, if credit downgrade encourages managers to improve the company’s financial condition, then the recovery effort will be reflected in those financial ratios. Based on this argument, this paper tests the following hypotheses: (1) Companies that experience a credit rating downgrades reduce their SG&A ratio, (2) Companies experiencing a credit rating downgrades increase asset turnover ratio. This study analyzes the sample of listed companies in KRX from 2000 to 2014. Credit rating data are obtained from Korea Investors Service (KIS), a nation’s first licensed credit rating agency. KIS became an affiliate of Moody’s Investors Service in December 2001. Financial data, ownership data, and analyst data are obtained from FnGuide’s DataGuide5. Through the sample selection process, 1,309 firm-year observations are finally left. The results of the empirical analysis are as follows. First, the decline in the credit ratings shows a significant negative correlation with the SG&A ratio and a positive correlation with the change in the asset turnover ratio. These results can be interpreted as the fact that companies with a credit rating downgrade attempt to recover their credit ratings, by reducing discretionary costs, and operating their assets efficiently to increase sales. Second, this relationship is strongest in companies with the BBB group, which is the boundary between the investment grade and the speculative grade, suggesting that companies which face the largest cost burden in a period of falling credit rating may put more efforts to recover from downgrades. In addition, as a result of analyzing the sample by the ratio of SG&A expenses in prior period, this study finds that the improvement in the SG&A ratio due to the downgrade of the credit rating is more pronounced in higher SG&A sample, which seems to be related to larger agency costs. The results in this study implicate that there is an implicit monitoring role of the credit rating company, and that it is actually affecting the strategy of the company. This finding provides useful implications for various stakeholder groups such as academics, practitioners, investors and supervisory agencies.