However, investors seem to focus more on cash holdings rather than working capital
and this can be due to two reasons. First, Malaysian firms have a very strong
dependence on banks for their financing (Suto, 2003) and the various working capital
financing schemes offered by the banks in the country probably makes working
capital less of a worry. Second, a survey by Manu-Life Holdings Bhd, the Manulife
Investment Sentiment Index in 2013 reveals that 83 percent of investors prefer to hold
cash rather than invest their money in other assets and that Malaysia has the highest
cash asset allocation compared to other countries in Asia. Malaysian investors prefer to
hoard cash to “save for a rainy day” (Fuad, 2013) so it is not surprising that cash has a
greater impact on firm valuation compared to working capital.
Next, the analysis on the effect of financing constraints on the relationship between
working capital investment and firm value is carried out using OLS with Roger’s
standard errors adjusted for firm-level clustering. The results of the analysis are
reported in Table IV.
The coefficients of the variables for constrained firms are higher than those of
unconstrained firms except for ΔNetAssetst and Dividendt. Earningst and ΔEarningst+1