Résumé
The aim of our research is to study the link between ownership structure and debt maturity. The study is performed on a sample of Euronext listed French companies over the 2011-2013 period. Our results show that the monitoring by short-term debt can, to a certain extent, be a substitute for traditional governance mechanisms. First, the ownership concentration measured by the two largest shareholders is positively associated with debt maturity until the threshold of voting rights close to 56 percent, and negatively over this threshold (inverted u-shape relationship). Then, the nature of ownership, i.e. family ownership and managerial ownership are also positively associated with debt maturity until the threshold of voting rights respectively close to 44 percent, and 15 percent, and negatively over this threshold. The institutional investor ownership is positively associated with debt maturity.