Asia Pacific University Library catalogue

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of Master of Finance (UCMF1808FIN)

Many empirical researches saw the capital structure as one of the characteristics that really affect the performance of the companies. This is because it is directly associated with the ability of a firm to meet the financial obligations and address the stakeholders satisfaction. Therefore, the overall objective of this study is to investigates the effect of capital structure on firm performance of non-financial companies listed in Muscat Securities Market (MSM).This study has consider six independent variables, namely long-term debt, firm size, debt to equity ratio, liquidity, tangibility and sales growth together with firm growth as control variable. Tobin’s Q was used to represent the dependent variable of firm performance while capital structure was representing independent variable by long term debt, firm size, and debt to equity ratio, liquidity, tangibility and firm growth. A panel data was collected from a sample of 70 non-financial listed companies in Muscat Securities Market for the period from 2014 to 2018. Descriptive statistics, several diagnostics tests and panel regression analysis techniques had been used in this study. The study succeeded to identify that firm size, debt to equity ratio, liquidity and tangibility has a significant relationship on performance of non financial listed companies in Muscat Securities Market, while not significant with long-term debt and sales growth.