The results indicate that there is strong evidence of a negative significant relationship
between leverage of the firm and institutional ownership. The results show limited evidence
of this negative relationship when the percentage of institutional ownership is used as the
dependent variable, this result is found significant only in fixed effects model in Table II.
However, there is strong evidence that the number of shares owned by institutional investors
is negatively related to leverage of the firm, this result is found in Tables II and III. Therefore,
there is a strong evidence of a negative relationship between institutional investors (IO and
PIO) and the leverage of the firm. The result is consistent with the agency theory and hence
institutional investors prefer to invest in firms with low leverage ratios. Tong and Ning (2004)
find limited evidence that institutional investors in US prefer to invest in firms with low debt
ratios. Therefore, this result is in line with the role of institutional investors as monitoring
device. This result is consistent with Friend and Lang (1988), Chaganti and Damanpour
(1991), and Grier and Zychowicz (1994).