The financial leverage in medium-sized companies: an Italian survey

The aim of our work is to highlight the impact of a series of company variables on the financial leverage in a medium-sized company. It permits to evaluate the effect of several decisions on the financial leverage, making them more aware. The sample is composed of all Italian medium-sized companies belong to the manufacturing food and beverage sector, extracted by Amadeus. The sample is composed of 4,705 firms, and the observed period was 2010-2011-2012-2013. It emerged a moderate correlation between liabilities and fixed assets. In addition, fixed assets have not been properly funded by permanent capital, creating probable financial tensions. In addition, we verified the company's attitude to repay debts, thanks to its core business: it emerged a strong and a moderate correlation between liabilities and revenues, decreasing each year; indeed, the core business, thanks to its attitude in generating cash, is useful to pay debts.