ABSTRACT

The greatest issue striving against the management ofanyfirm in Nigeria and the world over is how to minimize cost ofcapital and maximize shareholders wealth. The study made used of an ex-post facto research design. The data collected were then lubvlaied and analyzed using the simple regression analysis. The study revealed that The • :’e: c pi.' of the bank is negative meaning that without debt financing (D), equity ji.iu,icing (E; and aebl to equity ratio (D/E), the profitability ofthe bank considered in this study will be negative. Debtfinancing (D) is negatively related to profitability ofthe bank as it was assumed that the slope coefficient is constant for the bank. When debts become relatively high, further increasing generate significant agency of bankruptcy of f'n.tccui! distress between bondholders and shareholders. This is then reflected as a >: yaipe relationship. The value of debt financing is -0.040657, meaning that a unit increase in debt financing will pull down the profit of the shareholders by 4%. Equity financing exist a positive coefficient of0.389768 for the bank that is, equityfinancing is positively related to profitability ofthe bank considered in the study. It then implies that an increase on equityfinancing ofthe bank, the profitability ofthe bank will increase by about 40%. It therefore, explained that shareholders ofthe banks tend to maximize more prefit through equity financing. It is therefore, perfectly significant. The financial ratio which is debt to equity ratio is positive with a value of407776.6; it explained that there is a positive relationship between debt to equity ratio and profitability of the bank under investigation. An increase on debt-equity financing will bring about 407776.6 units increase in profit of the bank. Conclusively, Debt/equity ratio significantly influences financial performance, with most investors preferring to invest in companies with a smaller debt/equity ratio. Also, it could be concludedfrom the above findings that the performance ofFirst bank Nigeria Pic is significantly related to the capital structure ratios. /r is recommended that In improving banks’ performance, share of equity financing in the capital structure should be increased. To avoid conflict ofmanagers with shareholders interest, managers should go for long run value maximization ofthe firm which satisfies both managers and shareholders interest