The ownership structure of UK firms and the informativeness of accounting earnings

This paper provides evidence that in the UK, a firm's ownership structure is related to the informativeness of its accounting earnings for price. Evidence is reported that concentrated outside ownership is negatively related to the contemporaneous price-earnings association. This is interpreted as indicative of more non-accounting information being collected and disseminated for firms whose ownership includes large outside (non-managerial) blocks and a consequential loss of informativeness of contemporaneous accounting earnings. Having controlled for the information environment, we provide evidence that the overall relation between return and earnings is attenuated for firms with diffuse outside ownership. This is interpreted as evidence of the market anticipating opportunistic managerial manipulation of earnings when outside ownership is diffuse.