Sunshine after the rain? The stock market performance of family firms in and after financial crises

Abstract

This study applies financial crises as an exogenous shock to family and non-family firms to identify differences in stock market performance. We investigate 278 firms listed on the German Stock Exchange in the world financial crisis starting in 2007 as well as the Euro crisis starting in 2010. Based on the methodology of Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2003), we form portfolios with and without family blockholders and apply equally- as well as value-weighted four-factor models to identify differences in stock market performance. Results show that family firms do not necessarily perform better than non-family firms in years of economic downturn. But our models suggest that they outperform non-family firms three years after the beginning of the world financial crisis and in and after the Euro crisis. This implies that family firms recover faster than their non-family counterparts. We follow that the financial preconditions of family firms, differing financial strategies during recessions and the controlling incentives and capacities that are rooted in the long-term orientation and risk aversion of family blockholders, as well as the country-specific corporate governance framework of Germany, explain these differences. The paper contributes to the ongoing academic exploration on family firm performance as well as crisis resilience of family firms and suggests practical implications for policymakers in countries with high levels of family ownership among firms