Suchergebnisse

We examine the relation between the presence of U.S. government as a major customer and a supplier firm's loan contract terms, using major corporate customers as a benchmark. We find that firms with major government customers are associated with fewer covenants and a lower likelihood of having performance pricing provisions in their loan contracts. In contrast, we do not find such associations for firms with major corporate customers. Further, we find no evidence that the existence of major government customers is related to the supplier firm's loan spread, security, or maturity. We conjecture that lenders benefit from the stricter monitoring of the government as a major customer and thus use fewer covenants and performance pricing provisions when lending to firms with major government customers than when lending to those with major corporate customers. We provide evidence consistent with this conjecture.

This study examines how a firm's business relationship with the U.S. government, in particular, sales to the government, impacts its loan contract terms and how the effect is different from that of major corporate customers. We find that firms with major government customers have a lower number of covenants and are less likely to have performance pricing provisions in their loan contracts than other firms, whereas major corporate customers do not have such impacts. We do not find evidence that major government customers affect the supplier firm's loan spread, security, or maturity. We conjecture that lenders benefit from the strict monitoring activities of the government customer and reduce the use of covenants and performance pricing in loan contracts when the borrowing firm has a government customer.