Secondary Privatisation: The Evolution of Ownership Structures of Privatised Enterprises

Abstract

This summary was prepared and edited by Barbara Blaszczyk and Richard Woodward of CASE - the Center for Social and Economic Research. In the project whose results are presented here, our team investigated the phenomenon of secondary (that is, the post-privatisation evolution of the ownership structures established as the result of initial privatisation) in three transition economies (the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia) in the years 1995-1999. Our research covered companies that were privatised under various privatisation schemes which established ownership structures whose nature was heavily determined by privatisation policy rather than market forces (including employee buyout programs and mass privatisation programs in which all citizens were given rights to acquire shares at prices significantly below market value). We present the post-privatisation changes in ownership structures of privatised companies and analyse the relationships between those changes and the economic performance of the companies. Much attention is also devoted to the role of the institutional environment. We hope that the results of this research will be useful for everyone interested in the little-researched question of what has happened to companies after privatisation in the transition countries.