Abstract: From the perspective of the internal capital market and taking the A-share mainboard non-financial listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2006 to 2015 as research samples, this paper empirically investigates the impact of strategic choices of corporate shareholdings with financial institutions on the optimization and adjustment of capital structure. The findings show that the strategy of corporate mixed shareholdings with financial institutions would slow down the speed of capital structure adjustment, and this effect is more obvious in the over-indebted enterprises; when enterprises choose the strategy of holding shares with a number of non-bank financial institutions, the slowing down of capital structure adjustment speed is most significant. Further study shows that the shareholding strategy of“bank+non-bank”is conductive to reducing the negative effects on the operation risks of listed companies resulted from capital structure adjustment. Therefore, under the policy guidance of “lowering leverage, reducing liabilities and controlling risks”, it is necessary for the regulatory authorities to strengthen the supervision of the behaviors of mixed shareholdings with financial institutions in the enterprises with excessive liabilities. As for the enterprises, they need to promote the cooperation between themselves and financial institutions and optimize the relevant governance structures, to improve their ability to adjust the capital structure, and to prevent the capital structure of the entity enterprises from operational risks and financial risks caused by the deviation from the actual target requirements.

Key words: shareholdings with financial institutions, strategic choices, target capital structure, dynamic adjustment