Determinants of Number of Bankers by Listed Nigerian Firms

This paper investigates the impact of firm-level attributes (cash flow from operating activities, sales revenue, profit after tax, firm size, and firm age) on the number of banks firms decide to have. The paper hypothesizes a significant positive relationship between the number of banks and firm attributes. We utilize data drawn from online annual reports and financial statements of 38 Nigerian non-financial quoted firms from 2011 to 2013. We model cross-sectional multiple regressions for the paper, and the test results are largely consistent with a priori expectations, except firm age. After controlling for industry membership, our findings suggest that operating cash flow, profit after tax, and firm size significantly increase the number of bankers. We find that firm age significantly reduces the number of bankers, contrary to prior findings. We find no evidence to suggest that sales revenue affects the number of bankers.