Federal State Shareholdings in Russian Companies

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of federal state shareholdings on the performance of Russian companies. It focuses on mixed ownership companies rather than conventional state enterprises and distinguishes between several types of federal state shareholdings and golden shares. Econometric analysis shows that companies with state ownership generally perform worse than the average firm in terms of labour productivity and profitability. However, there are remarkable differences in the performance of companies with different types of state shareholdings. These differences are explained by different degrees of the federal state control over such enterprises. The paper concludes that the government should avoid keeping equity stakes in companies unless there is a necessity to retain them. Finally, the issue of golden shares in strategically important companies seems to be a reasonable alternative to retaining some control over them through equity ownership.