Above-Average Debt Ratio and the Relationship with Return on Equity: The Case of the Vietnamese Listed Seafood Enterprises

Abstract:Many studies have presented the relationship between the leverage of firms and return on equity (ROE) in order to analyze how significant leverage has influence on the ROE of enterprises. Exploring the data set from financial statements and annual reports of the Vietnamese listed seafood enterprises from 2009 to 2013, the paper aims to examine the determinants of these firms having a greater debt ratio than the average of the industry. In addition, the relationship between ROE and a firm’s leverage is analyzed by applying a fixed-effects regression. It can be found that firms having an above-average debt ratio have a lower ROE than their counterparts by 50.94%.