Ownership, Investor Protection and Earnings Expectations

Abstract:  This study examines the interactive influence of corporate ownership, corporate governance and investor protection on the incorporation of current value shocks in the accounting earnings of European companies. This influence is investigated not only by means of the association between current news and current earnings but also with respect to the association of the same news with expected future earnings, and its persistence. Consistent with the contractual explanation of accounting conservatism, it is shown that the accounting behaviour examined is a function of the demand created by shareholders, and that the institutional arrangements in force are of lesser significance in the presence of widely held ownership. On the other hand, greater separation between supervision and management and stronger investor protection are seen to be influential under close ownership, as these are shown to curb aggressive accounting in the form of a persistently lower recognition of bad news in earnings. Evidence is also provided that stricter corporate governance practices in Europe can substitute for weaknesses in investor protection provisions in law.     

Managerial Ownership and Agency Conflicts: A Nonlinear Simultaneous Equation Analysis of Managerial Ownership, Risk Taking, Debt Policy, and Dividend Policy

This paper uses a nonlinear simultaneous equation methodology to examine how managerial ownership relates to risk taking, debt policy, and dividend policy. The results have implications for our understanding of agency costs. We find risk to be a significant and positive determinant of the level of managerial ownership while managerial ownership is also a significant and positive determinant of the level of risk. The result supports the argument that managerial ownership helps to resolve the agency conflicts between external stockholders and managers but at the expense of exacerbating the agency conflict between stockholders and bondholders. We further observe evidence of substitution-monitoring effects between managerial ownership and debt policy, between managerial ownership and dividend policy, and between managerial ownership and institutional ownership.     

Trust Beneficiary Protection,Ownership Structure,and Risk Taking of Trust Corporations: Evidence from China

In this article, the influence of trust beneficiary protection on the risk-taking level of trust companies is examined by using a sample of 45 trust companies from 2006 to 2012. Quantified assessment indicators are established to evaluate the protection of trust beneficiaries. The results show that concentrated ownership reduces risk taking in state-controlled trust companies. And in regions with better legal systems, the inhibition of beneficiary protection over trust company risk taking is stronger. Additionally, further analysis shows that risk taking is beneficial to the performance of trust companies, and inertia is observed in trust company risk taking.     

Private Versus State Ownership and Spillover of Investor Protection Standards in Interprovince Mergers: Evidence from China's Emerging Market

This paper examines the spillover effects of investor protection standards for interprovince mergers in China's emerging markets. Using a sample of 372 mergers, we find that if the provincial investor protection of the acquirer is better than that of the target, a privately owned acquirer will get significantly higher abnormal returns, whereas a local state-owned acquirer will not. Additional evidence indicates that in contrast to the crossborder acquirers or the private acquirers, the local state-owned acquirers in interprovince mergers come from provinces with worse fiscal conditions and prefer to acquire targets in provinces with better investor protection or fiscal conditions.     

Shareholder taxation and aggregate dividend payout: Evidence from the tax reform act of 1986

The effect of shareholder taxation on corporate dividend policy is a major controversy in financial economics. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 eliminated the statutory tax disadvantage of dividends versus long-term capital gains for individual shareholders. Using aggregate time series data I find evidence that corporate dividend payout has become more generous in the period after tax reform.     

Ownership structure and dividend policy: Evidence from Italian firms

Abstract

This paper reports on empirical investigations into the relationship between dividend policy and ownership structure of firms, using a sample of 139 listed Italian companies. Ownership structure in Italy is highly concentrated and hence the relevant agency problem to analyse seems to be the one that arises from the conflicting interests of large shareholders and minority shareholders. This paper therefore attempts to test the rent extraction hypothesis by relating the firm’s dividend payout ratio to various ownership variables, which measure the degree of concentration in terms of the voting rights of large shareholders. The hypothesis that other non-controlling large shareholders may have incentives to monitor the largest shareholder is also tested. The results of the empirical analysis reveal that firms make lower dividend payouts as the voting rights of the largest shareholder increase. Results also suggest that the presence of agreements among large shareholders might explain the limited monitoring power of other ‘strong’ non-controlling shareholders.     

Majority and Minority Ownership of Publicly-Traded Firms: A Test of the Value of Control Using Market Multiples

Publicly-traded companies that are controlled by other publicly-traded companies provide a unique setting in which to test whether the market values of majority and minority ownership interests are proportionate to their ownership percentages. Test results indicate that the value of subsidiary net assets and net income are greater to majority shareholders than to minority shareholders. However, comparison of asset and income valuation with a sample of diffusely-held firms indicates that this valuation asymmetry is not due to a wealth transfer from the minority to the majority owners but to a discounting of the portion of the subsidiary owned by the minority shareholders.     

Shareholder Rights,Insider Ownership and Earnings Management

This paper examines whether shareholder rights, which enable shareholders to replace managers, can constrain earnings management, and whether this effect is conditional on the level of insider ownership. Using the comprehensive shareholder rights measure constructed by Gompers et al. ( 2003 ), we find that firms with stronger shareholder rights are associated with fewer income‐increasing discretionary accruals, suggesting that stronger shareholder rights deter managers from reporting aggressive earnings. Moreover, if insider ownership introduces managerial entrenchment, managers with higher ownership would be insulated from shareholder discipline. Consistent with this entrenchment theory, we find that the association between shareholder rights and earnings management becomes insignificant in the presence of higher levels of insider ownership. Shareholder rights are negatively associated with earnings management only when insider ownership is low. Our results indicate that the disciplinary effect of shareholder rights can be attenuated by high levels of insider ownership.     

Ownership Structure and Dividend Preference

Most Chinese listed companies have been transformed from state-owned enterprises; the resulting institutional transformation is characterized by the emergence of highly concentrated ownership and state-owned shares, which may exert an influence on corporate finance. We examine the relationship between ownership structure and cash dividend preference and then reexamine the same relationship with different levels of growth opportunities. The results reveal a positive relationship between cash dividend preference and state ownership, but the same relationship exists only in firms facing lower levels of investment opportunity. However, the ratio of employee shares and tradable shares correlates significantly and negatively with cash dividend preference.     

Large Shareholder Entrenchment and Performance: Empirical Evidence from Canada

Abstract:  Recent empirical evidence indicates that the largest publicly traded companies throughout the world have concentrated ownership. This is the case in Canada where voting rights are often concentrated in the hands of large shareholders, mostly wealthy families. Such concentrated ownership structures can generate specific agency problems, such as large shareholders expropriating wealth from minority shareholders. These costs are aggravated when large shareholders don't bear the full costs of their decisions because of the presence of mechanisms (dual class voting shares, pyramids) which lead to voting rights being greater than the cash flow rights (separation). We assess the impact of separation on various performance metrics while controlling for situations when the large shareholder has (1) the opportunity to expropriate (high free cash flows in the firm) and (2) the incentive to expropriate (low cash flow rights). We also control for when the large shareholder has the power to expropriate (high voting rights, outright control and insider management) and for the presence of family ownership. The results support our hypotheses and indicate that firm performance is lower when large shareholders have both the incentives and the opportunity to expropriate minority shareholders.     

Dividends,Corporate Monitors and Agency Costs

We report new evidence on the hypothesis that dividends reduce agency costs. Consistent with dividends as a mechanism to reduce agency costs, we find that, on average, firms with a majority of strict outside directors on their boards experience significantly lower mean abnormal returns around the announcements of sizeable dividend increases. Our results are robust to multivariate controls for firm size, leverage, ownership, growth options, and change in dividend yield. However, we find no evidence that dividend increases reduce agency costs as measured by poison pills or outside blockholdings.     

Signaling, Free Cash Flow and Nonmonotonic Dividends

Many argue that dividends signal future earnings or dispose of excess cash. Empirical support is inconclusive, potentially because no model combines both rationales. This paper does. Higher quality firms pay dividends to eliminate the free cash-flow problem, while firms that outsiders perceive as lower quality pay dividends to signal future earnings and reduce the free cash-flow problem. In equilibrium, dividends are nonmonotonic with respect to the signal observed by outsiders; the highest quality firms pay smaller dividends than lower perceived quality firms. The model reconciles the existing literature and generates new empirical predictions that are tested and supported.     

标准的投资者保护制度和替代性投资者保护制度：一个概念性分析框架

基于在标准的投资者保护制度和替代性投资者保护制度之间做出的区分,本文提出了一个概念性分析框架,并对国有股权的制度安排在中国股票市场发展中的作用进行了初步的解释。标准的投资者保护制度——市场、法律和管制——固然重要,但是对于转轨国家而言,由于缺乏支撑标准的投资者保护制度运转的制度资源,利用替代性的投资者保护制度对于股票市场的早期发展就是至关重要的。     

Institutional Ownership Type and Earnings Quality: Evidence from Iran

Institutional ownership is an important factor in corporate governance. Institutional investors play important roles in firms because of their substantial shareholdings and their capability to monitor managers. However, the question is whether they are capable of monitoring the managers. The literature has provided different evidence for the monitoring role of institutional investors. This study attempts to provide insights into the monitoring roles of institutional investors by examining the relationship between institutional ownership and earnings quality on the Tehran Stock Exchange. Institutional investors are classified into two groups, namely active institutional investors and passive institutional investors, based on their monitoring power in Iran. A multidimensional method is used to measure the various aspects of earnings quality, such as earnings response coefficient, predictive value of earnings, discretionary accruals, conservatism, and real earnings management. The results show that institutional ownership has a positive effect on earnings quality. Similar to total institutional ownership, active institutional ownership has positive effects on proxies of earnings quality. Nonetheless, passive institutional ownership does not have any power to affect earnings quality. Moreover, lead-lag tests of the direction of causality suggest that institutional ownership leads to more earnings quality and not the reverse.     

Ownership concentration and bank risk: international study on acquisitions

This paper explores the effects of different types of bank ownership concentration on changes in bank risk during acquisition years. Using multi-country data from 2000 to 2006, during which market failures caused by various crises and government interventions are less influential to acquisition decisions, we collect 505 banking acquisition deals from 23 countries to examine which type of ownership concentration (such as financial intermediary, capital investor, non-financial, and state ownership) brings larger changes to an acquirer’s risk from pre-acquisition year to post-acquisition year (including non-performing loans, capital adequacy ratio, loan loss reserve, and credit rating). The empirical analyses show that acquirer banks with a concentration of shares owned by financial intermediaries and non-financial firms experience larger risk changes during acquisition years. In contrast, the risk changes of acquirer banks with a concentration of capital investors and state ownership are lower. Robustness checks from the random effect estimation, instrumental variables model, reverse causality, and different subsamples of (non-)U.S. or different levels of regulation enforcement confirm these results.     

Separation of Ownership from Control and Acquiring Firm Performance: The Case of Family Ownership in Canada

Abstract:   This study investigates the relationship between ownership structure and acquiring firm performance. A large proportion of Canadian public companies have controlling shareholders (families) that often exercise control over voting rights while holding a small fraction of the cash flow rights. This is achieved through the concurrent use of dual class voting shares and stock pyramids. Many suggest that these ownership structures involve larger agency costs than those imposed by dispersed ownership structures and that they distort corporate decisions with respect to investment choices such as acquisitions. We find that average acquiring firm announcement period abnormal returns for our sample of 327 Canadian transactions are positive over the 1998–2002 period. Cash deals, acquisitions of unlisted targets and cross‐border deals have a positive impact on value creation. Governance mechanisms (outside block‐holders, unrelated directors and small board size) also have a positive influence on the acquiring firm performance. Further, the positive abnormal returns are greater for family firms. We do not find that separation of ownership and control has a negative impact on performance. These results suggest that, contrary to other jurisdictions offering poor minority shareholder protection or poor corporate governance, separation of control and ownership is not viewed as leading to value destroying mergers and acquisitions, i.e., market participants do not perceive families as using M&A to obtain private benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. We do find a non‐monotonic relationship between ownership level and acquiring firm abnormal returns. Ownership of a majority of the cash flow rights has a negative impact on announcement returns. This is consistent with the view that large shareholders may undertake less risky projects as their wealth invested in the firm increases.     

海外投资者保护基金制度及借鉴

保护投资者尤其是保护中小投资者,是证券市场监管的核心内容,也是证券市场健康运行的基础.国际上,证券投资者保护机制已经有30多年的运行经验,很多方面值得我们借鉴.本文从法律框架、组织模式、资金来源、赔偿机制、运作情况等方面,对国际上主要国家和地区的证券投资者保护基金制度进行了比较,并结合我国证券市场特征,对我国证券投资者保护制度的建立和完善提出若干建议.     

Intensive Board Monitoring,Investor Protection and Segment Disclosure Quality: Evidence from EU

Abstract

This study examined the association between intensive board monitoring (IBM) and segment disclosure quality (SDQ). It also investigated whether this association can be moderated by firm's home country investor protection (IP) level. Based on a panel of 271 non-financial European Union (EU) listed corporations covering the 2007–2012 period, this study estimated two multiple regression models including industry and year fixed effects. We found evidence that the segment disclosure quality is higher when a majority of outside directors serve on monitoring committees. We, also, found that the positive association between IBM and SDQ is more pronounced for firms in a weak IP environment and less pronounced for firms in a strong IP environment. Thus, we provided evidence in favor of a substitutive relationship between IBM and IP level with respect to their association with SDQ. Our findings are evidenced by several robustness tests.     

The Level and Stability of Institutional Ownership and Firm Performance: Evidence from Taiwan

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of shareholding stability of institutional investors on firm performance. We analyze 647 sample companies listed in the Taiwan Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2009 using the coefficient of variance of institutional holding proportion as the measure for ownership stability. The empirical results show that increasing stability of institutional holdings is related to better firm performance. The low-risk and younger firms with higher CEO incentive compensation, larger insider holdings, and higher growth usually have better performance. Furthermore, when the long-term institutional shareholdings, particularly of foreign institutions, are higher, the firm performance is better.     

Information,Ownership Structure,and Shareholder Voting: Evidence from Shareholder-Sponsored Corporate Governance Proposals

This paper examines how information and ownership structure affect voting outcomes on shareholder-sponsored proposals to change corporate governance structure. We find that the outcomes of votes vary systematically with the governance and performance records of target firms, the identity of proposal sponsors, and the type of proposal. We also find that outcomes vary significantly as a function of ownership by insiders, institutions, outside blockholders, ESOPs, and outside directors who are blockholders. These results suggest that both public information and ownership structure have a significant influence on voting outcomes.