The role of risk assessment and capital structure is vital for the sustainable growth of firms and increasing the shareholders' wealth. This research explores the correlation between firm risk and capital structure using datasets from the sugar and cement sectors of Pakistan as a developing economy. This study is unique as it involved two firms of different nature (sugar firms operate seasonally while cement firms operate yearly) to view the real picture on the impact of risk and structure assessment on firms' credibility and shareholders' wealth. For this purpose, 15-year data (2000-2014) containing the financial statements of the target sectors were collected and the ANOVA analysis was applied with credit risk, liquidity risk, systematic risk, and firm size were used as the regressor variables, firm growth and dividend payout ratio as the control variables, and leverage as the regression variable. The findings showed that credit risk and liquidity risk are significantly correlated with leverage. This suggests that decision-makers pertaining to firms' risk and efficiency must focus more on risk to pursue a stronger and sustainable increase in shareholder wealth.
Keywords: Credit risk; Financial development; Financial structure; Liquidity risk; Sustainable finance; Systematic risk.
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.