Cash Brilliance: Exploring Pakistan's Business Landscape through the Lens of Competitors' Dynamics

Abstract

This study analyzed the impact of competitors’ factors on firm cash holding policy. Information related to competitors’ activities is necessary for most corporate strategies, but in most financial researches, factors related to competitors are not considered. This study aims at shedding light on the empirical effect of competitors’ specific characteristics in firm’s cash stockpiling decisions. For this purpose, the competitors’ factors were explained by these eight specific explanatory variables that determine the competitors’ specific characteristics such as (NWC, ROA, LEVER, SIZE, DEFA, CAPEX, MTB, and Z-SCORE) and firm cash holding as dependent variable. The target population of the study was Pakistan stock exchange listed manufacturing firms and the sample consists of 40 firms in the spinning textile sector for the 10 years data from 2009- 2018. The data was gathered from the financial statements of companies. Two main sites were used for collecting annual statements of companies the first was PSX (Pakistan Stock Exchange) and the second was companies’ own website. The study used the panel regression model with random effects, after conforming the significance of Hausman Specification Test (1978). The finding of this study was that the company cash holding policy significantly affected by the competitors’ factors. This study revealed that the company can make their cash holding decisions in the light of their competitors’ behaviors. The results offer stimulating insights at the competitors’ factors that compute the firm cash stockpiling decisions. The results might be beneficial for the financial manager, investor and also for the consultant.