Promoters' equity pledging, policy uncertainty and firm-level cash holding: evidence from an emerging market

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and promoters' share pledging activity for real estate and construction firms in India. The author further divides the sample into financially sound and financially constrained firms and re-examines the relationship between EPU and promoters' share pledging activity for them. Additionally, the author investigates the moderating effect of EPU on firm-level cash holding for pledged firms.Design/methodology/approachThe author conducts multiple regression to examine the effect of EPU on the share-pledging activity of a firm on sample data of Indian construction and real estate firms. The financial and pledging data was collected for all listed firms from March 2009 to March 2020 from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. The EPU data was re-estimated using the three-period moving average method. All data used in the study was collected from secondary sources.FindingsThe author finds that EPU influences pledging activity, and the association between them is opposite for financially constrained and financially sound firms. Also, the author reports that an increase in EPU increases firm-level cash holding for pledged firms, and the interaction between EPU and share pledging is significantly associated with firm-level cash holding.Practical implicationsThe managerial implications of this study are manifold. Managers of financially constrained firms should pay attention to the promoters pledging activity so that in a rising EPU environment, issues of managerial entrenchment can be avoided. Moreover, any further promoters' share pledging activity under rising EPU conditions may force managers to hoard higher cash and thus reducing investment and profitability.Originality/valueThis paper presents evidence of relationship between EPU, share pledging activity and firm-level cash holding in an emerging economy. The study also compares the response of financially constrained and financially sound firms for EPU on equity pledging activity and that of equity pledging on firm-level cash holdings.