IMPACT OF LEASE FINANCING ON FIRM VALUE OF LISTED MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT Lease financing is a vital, with economic benefits, and broadly used on the basis of funding. It enables units from start-ups, multinationals to public institutions to obtain the obligation to use possessions, equipment as well as plants minus making big original cash expenditures. Companies have many machineries as well as equipment to acquire .This equipment and machineries might not be actually essential to be purchased but rent to have sufficient wealth for their actions. Therefore, the study examined the impact of lease financing on firm value of listed manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study employed only secondary source of data collection through 8years (2017-2024) financial report of sight (8) manufacturing firms on Nigerian Stock Exchange as at 2024 as the sample for the study while STATA version 14.0 was used as method of data analysis. The findings of the study revealed that, the results of the study showed a positive but insignificant impact between the finance lease (FIL) and firm value of the sampled manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Furthermore, operating lease (OPL) results showed positive and significant relationship with firm value of the sampled manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Finally, sales and leaseback finance (SLBF) results showed negative and insignificant relationship with firm value of the sampled manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study recommended among others that, manufacturing firms should investigate the specific characteristics and terms of their finance lease agreements to identify factors that could maximize the positive effect, such as asset type, lease duration, or favorable purchase options, with the goal of translating the potential into a statistically meaningful increase in firm value.