Capital adequacy rules are safety valve for regulators and banks’ clients/shareholders to reduce expected risks faced by commercial banks especially for cross border transactions as these rules are applied compulsory by all banks internationally. Applying these rules will achieve rational management and governance. This paper examines explanatory victors that influence capital adequacy ratio (CAR) in the Egyptian commercial banks. The study covers 36 banks during the period from 2003-2013. We examined the relationship between CAR as dependent variable and the following independent variables: earning assets ratio, profitability, and liquidity, Loan loss provision as measure of credit risk, net interest margin growth, size, loans assets ratio and deposits assets ratio. Furthermore, we investigate determinants of CAR before and after the 2007-2008 international financial crises. Results vary according to the period understudy. For the whole period 2003 to 2013 results show that liquidity, size and management quality are the most significant variables. Before the period 2008 results show that asset quality, size and profitability are the most significant variables. After the period 2009 results show that asset quality, size, liquidity, management quality and credit risk are the most significant variable that explain the variance of Egyptian banks’ CAR.

Financial distress prediction gives an early warning about defaulting risk for firms; thus, it is a real concern of the entire economy.Purpose: To examine the determinants of financial distress across MENA region countries, by using definitions of distress and historical data from active listed firms in the region.Methodology: logistic regression is run on firm-specific variables and a set of macroeconomic variables to develop a prediction model to examine the effect of these predictors on the probability of financial distress.Findings: it has been found that after controlling for country effects, accounting ratios, firm size, and macroeconomic variables provided an acceptable prediction model for listed MENA firms.Originality: a gap exists in the literature of developing countries’ prediction for financial distress. Many studies addressed bankruptcy prediction for a certain country in the region, however, a limited number of researches approached predicting distressed models for listed firms in the region.

One of the most important instruments of the financial system that reveals the future of the economy in any country is the profitability of the banking sector. Starting from 2008, Egypt was banged by consecutive shocks, both globally and locally, started with global financial crisis in Sep., 2008. The essential objective of the current study is to investigate factors that affect Egyptian banks’ profitability before and after financial crisis using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) through Eviews. The sample period covers from 2004 to 2013, return on assets and return on equity were used as proxy for banks’ profitability. The explanatory variables which affect profitability are deposits to total assets ratio, operating income to asset ratio, credit quality, capital adequacy, loans rate, equity growth minus loan growth rate, asset share ratio and Egyptian banks’ total assets to Egyptian gross domestic product (GDP).The empirical findings suggested that Egyptian banks with higher capital strength, asset share, and efficient management exhibit higher profitability level, whilst Egyptian banks with higher credit risk and loans intensity exhibit lower profitability level.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the possible non-linear effect of net working capital (NWC) level on profitability for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region listed companies. Furthermore, the study tests the possible interactive effect of cash levels on the relationship between NWC and profitability. Design/methodology/approach NWC level is the independent variable and profitability is the dependent variable using two proxies, return on assets (ROA) and returns on equity (ROE). Control variables are size, leverage, gross domestic product growth and sales revenue growth. The generalized method of moments was used to analyze the data of 134 consumer-goods listed firms in 12 MENA countries for the period 2013–2019. Findings The results demonstrate that NWC levels had a non-linear effect on profitability using ROA as a profitability proxy while results were insignificant using ROE as a profitability proxy. Furthermore, results show the absence of interactive effects between NWC, cash levels and both profitability proxies. Originality/value The study fills a gap in the working capital management (WCM) literature by providing new evidence on WCM’s non-linear effect of corporate performance in the MENA region emerging markets using the consumer-goods industry sample. The study contributes to the financial managers’ working capital optimization efforts in the MENA region by providing evidence on the usefulness of WC optimization efforts in the region from a financial performance point of view. According to the researchers’ knowledge, a few studies attempted to investigate this non-linear relationship for neither MENA region countries nor the consumer-goods industry.

Purpose Motivated by massive bank failures during the financial crisis and the remarkable resilience of Islamic banks (IBs), this paper aims to analyze the interdependencies between asset/liability portfolio choices of IBs in emerging markets. Design/methodology/approach The authors collect data from the financial statements of IBs in the Middle East and North Africa region and Southeast Asia during the period 2002-2012. Using canonical correlation analysis, the authors investigate the degree of interdependencies between the asset/liability accounts unique to IBs and how their ALM models work at times of economic turmoil. Findings IBs tend to make decisions on sources of finance based on their asset portfolio choices. The interdependencies are stronger for small banks. IBs direct more of their investments to risk-mitigating instruments that share the risk with the borrower/client and are based on the purchase and sale of real goods rather than financial instruments. Additionally, banks tend to rely less on equity to finance their investments during economic boom and increase their equity holdings during economic bust. Practical implications This paper contributes to research on an under-researched, globally growing finance sector. It extends research on ALM while providing novel evidence using non-standardized asset/liability accounts unique to IBs. Originality/value The analysis of unique accounts has not been discussed in prior studies, which mainly used standardized account balances to compare Islamic and conventional banks. Moreover, the resilience of IBs and whether their ALM models are superior at times of turmoil has remained a black box. The results of this study are relevant to unravel this unanswered question.