Lietuvos bendrovių kapitalo struktūros pagrindimas

ENThe main purpose of the article is to analyse: i) if Lithuanian companies have theoretical conditions to increase shareholders value with the help of financial leverage and ii) how these theoretical conditions are adopted in practice. Firstly, related financial theories are summarised. Later hypothetical model is formed and compared with the results of analysis of Lithuanian companies' data. The conclusion of the theoretical analysis is that practical decisions should be somewhere between MM theory and theory of priorities, which depends on specific conditions, which can vary with the country, industry or even specific company. If the difference between costs of debt and equity is not significant, theory of priorities proves correct, otherwise - statements of the MM theory. The research has shown that actual profit tax rate paid by Lithuanian companies is only 4-5 proc. In recent years the rate diminished constantly due to availability of other tax shields. Debt costs are high in comparison to the return on assets and on equity (costs of equity), even after debt tax shield is taken into consideration. Thus, generally, debt is not very convenient or cheap source of financing for Lithuanian companies, although shareholders of several companies could benefit from higher financial leverage.The first conclusion of the research is that, given Lithuanian conditions, companies are able to increase shareholders value with the help of financial leverage, although the opportunity is much smaller than the theoretical one. The second conclusion is that Lithuanian companies usually do not use financial leverage to reduce taxes and thus to increase shareholders value. The main reasons are availability of other shields, high costs of debt, risk and uncertainty. However, any of these conclusions can be finalised only after taking into account specifics of operations and Lithuanian economic conditions.