Abstract: Taking 2011-2015 data of A-Share listed companies in China as a sample, the paper explores the change of cash holdings level from the perspective of different types of enterprise strategy, and on this basis, it further explores whether the ownership property of ultimate controller will affect the relationship between corporate strategy and cash holding level. The research finds that the cash holding level of exploratory enterprises is higher than that of defensive enterprises. This is mainly because the exploration type enterprises face more constrained by the financing constraints and more preventive motivation than the defensive enterprises, which will lead to more high cash holdings level, and more serious principal-agent problem of exploratory enterprises will also lead to more cash holdings level. Further, our study proves that compared with the non-state-owned enterprise, the positive effect of radical degree of enterprise strategy of the state-owned enterprise on firm′s cash holdings level will be enhanced; compared with central state-owned enterprise, the positive effect of radical degree of enterprise strategy of local state-owned enterprise on firm′s cash holdings level will be weakened, which is mainly the result of the government′s supporting and looting on the state-owned enterprises. The following conclusions can be drawn from this paper: the factors that affect cash holdings level should not only concern corporate finance, governance level and macroeconomic status, but also consider the strategic types of enterprises; when exploring managers′ decisions on cash holdings, they should give full consideration to the financing constraints they face, and pay more attention to the efficiency of cash use; corporate shareholders should strengthen the supervision of business managers′ embezzlement motives.

Key words: corporate strategy, cash holdings level, ultimate controller, ownership property