股权质押、风险管理与大股东增持

基于2004-2016年A股上市公司样本,本文发现,股权质押会影响上市公司大股东的增持行为,而质押风险管理是股权质押影响大股东增持的潜在渠道。相较于未面临质押预警压力的大股东,面临质押预警压力的大股东更有可能去增持;此外,相较于国有企业,民营企业的大股东在面临质押预警压力时更有可能去增持。在经济后果方面,对于同样面临质押预警压力的大股东而言,选择增持会让上市公司股价在之后有更好的表现。本文认为,除了传统的财务动机等之外,缓解自身质押风险是上市公司大股东增持的另一动机;而除了盈余管理、税收规避等管理质押风险的事前措施外,增持是上市公司大股东管理质押风险的另一有效手段。

Share Pledges,Risk Management,and Stake Raising by Large Shareholders

Share pledges are pervasive in China's A-share market. By the end of 2019, the market value of major shareholders' pledges had reached 5482 billion RMB, which accounted for 9.25% of the total market value of the A-share market. As a typical method of collateralized financing,the value of share pledges changes with the stock price. When the company's stock price goes down, the major shareholders are more likely to face margin call or fire-sale pressures, which can endanger the control rights of major shareholders. Even worse, in the case of a systemic market downturn, a large number of pledging risk events may lead to a systemic crisis in the financial market.Stake raising (i.e., a practice whereby major shareholders use their own money to buy stocks and increase their holdings of listed firms through the secondary market) is often interpreted as a positive signal by the stock market. Thanks to the effectiveness of stake raising in stabilizing and improving stock prices, its flexibility in terms of implementation and its controllability in terms of costs, stake raising can be used as an alternative way in managing share pledging risk. However, is this the case in China's A share market? If so, what is the underlying channel and what is the market performance of stake raising?Based on a sample of A-share listed companies from 2004 to 2016 , we find that share pledges tend to affect the stake-raising behavior of large shareholders, and the underlying channel is through risk management. Compared with large shareholders who are not facing margin call pressure, shareholders who are facing such pressure are more likely to increase their personal holdings of shares. Compared with shareholders in state-owned enterprises, those who owned private companies' shares show a more significant relation between share pledges and stake raising. In addition, we extend above results by further analyzing the aspects of market performance, media reports, and investor attention to shareholders' stake-raising behavior. We find that for shareholders who have faced margin call pressure, the market performance of listed firms for which major shareholders have conducted stake raising is significantly better than the performance of firms whose shareholders have not done so. In analyzing media reports and investor attention, we find that after completion of an actual stake-raising, the relevant media coverage and investor attention improve significantly. All of the above results show that in situations that involve share pledges, the majority shareholders are more likely to increase their shareholding in order to improve the risk management of share pledge. In addition, stake-raising behavior can indeed stabilize stock prices and mitigate the risk of share pledges for major shareholders.Our paper makes two contributions. First, we show that beyond the traditional financial and political motivations for stake raising, shareholders can also be motivated by the need for managing the risk of share pledges. Second, we show that apart from the ex-ante methods of risk prevention, such as earnings management, tax avoidance, or dividend policies, stake raising can serve as another effective means for alleviating the risks of share pledges for large shareholders,and this is due to its effectiveness, flexibility, and the controllability of costs. Our findings have two main policy implications. For large shareholders themselves, the findings suggest that stake raising can be an effective means for managing the risk of share pledges, apart from the methods of earnings management, tax evasion, dividend policies, and other ex-ante risk-management measures. For the authorities, our findings imply that regulating stake raising and share pledges are of great importance for improving the corporate governance of listed companies, especially in terms of regulating the behavior of large shareholders. Such methods are critical in preventing risks and promoting the healthy development of China's financial markets.