_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: Email: ivstella@yahoo.co.uk; South Asian Journal of Social Studies and Economics 3(4): 1-14, 2019; Article no.SAJSSE.50420 ISSN: 2581-821X Relating Financial Leverage to Corporate Performance: A Case of Cement Manufacturing Firms in Nigeria Makwe Stella Ivo 1* and Mike Anyanwaokoro 1 1 Department of Banking and Finance, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu State, Nigeria. Authors’ contributions This work was carried out in collaboration between both authors. Author MSI designed the study, performed the statistical analysis, wrote the protocol and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Author Author MA managed the analyses of the study and the literature searches. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript. Article Information DOI: 10.9734/SAJSSE/2019/v3i430114 Editor(s): (1) Dr. John M. Polimeni, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Albany, New York. Reviewers: (1) Godwin Israel Ebirien, Ken Saro Wiwa Polytechnic, Nigeria. (2) Lynda Soltani, University of Sfax, Tunisia. Complete Peer review History: http://www.sdiarticle3.com/review-history/50420 Received 16 May 2019 Accepted 26 July 2019 Published 31 July 2019 ABSTRACT The study evaluated the effect of leverage financing on performance of quoted cement manufacturing firms in Nigeria for the period 2006-2017. There are four (4) cement manufacturing firms in Nigeria studied out of eight (8) manufacturing cement firms. Purposive sampling technique were used in selecting the four (4) cement manufacturing firms in Nigeria out of the eight (8) cement manufacturing firms quoted in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). The main objective of the study is to investigate the effect of financial leverage on corporate performance of cement firms in Nigeria. The analytical tool adopted was ordinary least square (OLS) simple and multiple regressions. Findings of the study showed that Debt Ratio and Debt to Equity Ratio has negative insignificant effect on Return on Assets (ROA) of quoted cement manufacturing firms in Nigeria. On the other hand Interest Coverage Ratio (ICR) has positive and insignificant effect on return on assets of quoted cement firms in Nigeria. This implies that increase in Debt Ratio and Debt to Equity Ratio decreases ROA, while increase in ICR increases ROA of cement manufacturing firms Original Research Article