Financial Leverage and Shareholders’ Wealth: An Empirical Analysis of Foods and Beverages Firms in Nigeria

Abstract This study investigates the shareholders fund of quoted foods and beverage firms in Nigeria. This study employed expost facto research design. The study employed descriptive statistics and inferential statistics regression analysis was used to test the formulated hypotheses at 5% level of significance. Findings based on the empirical analysis indicated that debt-to-equity ratio shows negative significant influence earnings per share and return on equity of quoted foods and beverage firms in Nigeria at 5% level of significance respectively. It was recommended that financial decisions taken by the management should ensure be in consonance with shareholders wealth maximization objectives in order to achieve an increase in returns of equity. Key words: financial leverage, debt-equity, EPS, and return on equity