The determinants of leverage; differences between quoted and non quoted firms.

The design of capital structure in quoted companies has received much attention in the academic literature. Using panel data from quoted as well as non quoted Belgian companies, this paper investigates not only the determinants of capital structure, but also the influence of a stock listing on the relationship between these determinants and leverage. Overall our empirical results are in line with previous studies and support mainly the Pecking Order theory. Also in line with the predictions of the Pecking Order theory, quoted companies are less levered, even when controlling for other determinants of capital structure. Furthermore we find that the determinants of capital structure differ to some extend between quoted and non quoted companies.Accounting; Companies; Efficiency; Factors; Information; Model; Models; Performance; Ratios; Research; Determinants; Firms; Design; Capital structure; Structure; Panel data; Data; Studies; Order; Theory; Predictions;

Internal capital markets and capital structure: Bank versus internal debt.

Recent empirical evidence has shown that internal capital markets within multinational corporations are used to reduce overall financing costs by optimizing the mix of internal and external debt of affiliates in different countries. We show that this cost saving use of internal capital markets is not limited to multinationals, but that domestic business groups actively optimize the internal/external debt mix across their subsidiaries as well. We use both subsidiary and group level financial statement data to model the bank and internal debt concentration of Belgian private business group affiliates and show that a pecking order of internal debt over bank debt at subsidiary level leads to a substantially lower bank debt concentration for group affiliates as compared to stand-alone companies. However, as the group's overall debt level mounts, groups increasingly locate bank borrowing in subsidiaries with low costs of external financing (i.e. large subsidiaries with important collateralable assets) to limit moral hazard and dissipative costs.Internal capital markets; Capital structure; Debt source concentration; Ownership structure; Bank debt;

Capital structure dynamics in private business groups.

Dynamic models of capital structure assume that companies trade-off the advantages of a leverage adjustment and its costs. In general, private companies are assumed to face large adjustment costs, and should have lower financing flexibility. However, we argue that an important class of private companies – business group affiliates – may face relatively low adjustment costs because of their access to both internal and external capital markets. Our empirical results show significant differences in the composition of the capital structure and the leverage adjustment process between affiliates of private Belgian business groups and comparable stand-alone companies.

Legal reform and aggregate small and micro business bankruptcy rates: Evidence from the 1997 Belgian Bankruptcy Code.

Bankruptcy; Business;

Filtering speed in a continental European reorganization procedure.

Recent studies of U.S. Chapter 11 show it to be a relatively efficient procedure. We examine reorganization cases in a Continental European, creditor-oriented bankruptcy system, viz. Belgium, and report very different findings. Using hazard and cure regression models to determine what drives the length of time spent in reorganizations, we find evidence suggesting that courts have little impact on the screening and filtering process. In fact, virtually all drivers of procedure length prove to have the opposite sign of what one would expect if the procedure would efficiently realise its goals. Instead, the procedure appears to be mainly creditor driven.Reorganization; Bankruptcy; Hazard models; Filtering speed;

Corporate failure prediction modeling: Distorted by business groups' internal capital markets?.

Most models in the bankruptcy prediction literature implicitly assume companies are stand-alone entities. However, in view of the importance of business groups in Continental Europe, ignoring group ties may have a negative impact on predictive reliability. We find that the quality of information contained in the accounting ratios typically used as bankruptcy predictors (liquidity, leverage, performance, size and efficiency) is not the same for group member companies as compared to stand-alone firms. Combining company and group level data substantially increases fit and classification performance. Our results are consistent with existing theoretical and empirical findings from the internal capital markets literature.Accounting; Bankruptcy; Bankruptcy prediction; Business groups; Classification; Companies; Data; Efficiency; Factors; Firms; Impact; Information; Internal capital markets; Market; Markets; Model; Models; Performance; Quality; Ratios; Reliability; Research; Size;

Using Box–Behnken experimental design to optimize the degradation of Basic Blue 41 dye by Fenton reaction

Degradation of a Basic Blue 41 dye using Fenton reagent was examined at laboratory scale in batch experiments using Box-Behnken statistical experiment design. Dyestuff, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and ferrous ion (Fe2+) concentrations were selected as independent factors. On the other hand, color and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal were considered as the response functions. The value of coefficient of determination (R-2) for both color and chemical oxygen demand removal with values 0.98 and 0.99 shows the best agreement between predicted value and experimental values. Perturbation plots indicated that iron dosage has the most effect on both color and COD removal. Normalized plot of residuals also indicated that the models were adequate to predict for both responses. Color and COD removal increased with increasing H2O2 and Fe2+ concentrations up to a certain level. High concentrations of H2O2 and Fe2+ did not result in better removal of color and COD due to hydroxyl radical being gradually consumed by both oxidant and catalyst. Percent color removal was higher than COD removal indicating the production of colorless compounds. The second-order polynomial model revealed optimal process factor ratio. The ratio of H2O2/Fe2+/dyestuff which gives a complete color removal and 95% COD removal was found to be 1195 mg/L/90 mg/L/255 mg/L

Pretreatment of secondary effluents in view of optimal ozone-based AOP removal of trace organic contaminants : bench-scale comparison of efficiency and energy consumption

This study compares the performance of several ozone-based advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), in combination with filtration, in terms of trace organic contaminant (TrOC) removal efficiency and energy and cost requirement. It was shown that the hydroxyl radical ((OH)-O-center dot) scavenging rate of the secondary wastewater effluent decreased as a result of an additional pretreatment step, leading to an increase of ozone and (OH)-O-center dot exposures at the same ozone dose. Adding filtration such as sand filtration or granular activated carbon filtration (GACF) as a pretreatment increased the removal efficiency of TrOCs by all tested ozone-based AOPs and reduced the minimum effective ozone dose for TrOC elimination. When the applied ozone dose is more than this minimum effective ozone dose, the elimination of TrOCs can be observed. For example, because of the use of anion resin filtration, 17 alpha-ethinylestradiol elimination contributed by the process of ozone-based AOP increased from 34.6 to 42.1% at an ozone dose of 1.0 g O-3/g dissolved organic carbon. Ozone-based AOPs coupled with filtration as a pretreatment were found to be more cost-efficient than the single AOPs at all ozone dose levels. The energy consumption of ozone-based AOPs was decreased by more than 25% when applying GACF as a pretreatment. In comparison with other filtration techniques, the pretreatment of secondary effluents by GACF before ozonation was proven to be the most cost-effective method for TrOC elimination