Paper Title
An Appraisal of The Excess Funds Tied Up in The Working Capital Accounts of Pakistani Firms

Abstract
This study investigates the excess cash tied up in the working capital accounts of listed non-financial Pakistani firms coming from 12 different industrial segments during the period of 2005-2014. We find that on average sample firms have 310 billion Pakistani rupees worth of excess funds stuck in short-lived assets during the year 2005. Moreover, this figure kept on rising and reaches to 1646 billion rupees which show that the working capital management (WCM) has got worse over time and financial managers of these firms need to significantly cut down the unnecessary investments in working capital. The sectoral analysis reveals that Fuel and Energy was the worst sector in terms of short-term financial management with the highest value of excess funds tied up during the study period. Net trade cycle (NTC) analysis indicates that Coke and Petroleum was the best performing sector with a NTC of 42 days while the Electrical and Apparatus was the least performing sector with a NTC of 209 days. On average, listed firms have a working capital of around 90 days which suggests substantial room for improvement in all the components of working capital. Keywords - Excess Working Capital; Non-Financial Firms; Pakistan