SWF investments and debt maturity of target firms: An international evidence

•There is negative relationship between SWFs ownership and maturities of the bonds issued by their target firms.•SWFs could represent a threat to bondholders.•The deterioration in the bond contracting terms supports the political agenda hypothesis. Using a sample of bonds issued by firms acquired by sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), we find a negative relationship between SWFs ownership and maturities of the bonds issued by their target firms. This deterioration in the bond contracting terms supports the political agenda hypothesis suggesting that SWFs, because of their superior information and non-value maximizing agenda, could represent a threat to bondholders and hence exacerbates the agency problem.