59 Chapter IV Conclusion and Recommendation 5.1 Conclusion In recent years, there is a growing trend for ESG practice is importance that recognizes with significance of the corporate debt market. We present contributions to the existing body of literature by empirically examining two factor that we separated. First the impact of firms’ of ESG practice and debtor which is represent with ESG rating score on their cost of debt of ASEAN 5-countries from 2017 to 2021. Second the impact for investor particularly equity investor which represent with ESG rating score to stock return performance of ASEAN 5-countries from 2017 to 2019. The principal result of our research study provides the empirical evidence that straight result that the all pillar of ESG (Environment, Social, Governance and Total) rating score have negative influence on cost of debt financing in ASEAN-5 countries. Although the all pillar has negative influence but only significant are the total ESG rating score and Environment score at 5% level. That show answer the hypothesis of our research rejected of null hypothesis from H1 to H4. Debtholders process information related to the lending activity of firm’s ESG rating score issued by the firm into their risk assessments and lending decisions, thereby an ASEAN firm that issues higher of total ESG rating score are rewarded with a lower cost of debt. It can be argued that a total ESG rating score is holistic ESG practice of firms contains complete important information from the viewpoint of debtholders and as well evaluation to bee deeper of criteria of single individual from ESG pillar (Environment, Social or Governance). There is a similar result of those research in develop countries based on a sample of firms in European Union countries, show the all pillar and total of ESG rating score has negative and statically significant (Eliwa et al.,2021). It highlights the different viewpoints of debtholders on the ESG practice of businesses in develop countries (e.g., European Union countries) and developing countries (e.g., ASEAN countries). Moreover, in correspond to prior studies conducted in developed countries, the relationship between a firm’s ESG 60 practices and its cost of debt is have pronounced in ASEAN countries, possibly due to there is strong determinant policy from respective regulator in each country in ASEAN to development legal framework of ESG regulation found in ASEAN countries that causes firms’ ESG practices to act as parallel from firms in develop country. The second result for stock returns we examined the influence of ESG rating score to stock return that are raw return and abnormal return. The result finding shows the positive and strong statically significant influence ESG rating score to both of raw return and abnormal return which implies better of ESG rating score tend to gain higher stock return. We development the hypothesis H5 to H6 that show accepted the null hypothesis.