Family Blockholders Research Articles

Ownership Heterogeneity and Corporate Innovation Output: A Study on Family Blockholders and Activist Hedge Funds

This study examines the interplay between two influential yet opposing shareholder types—family blockholders and hedge funds—in relation to corporate innovation output. Using panel data on U.S. publicly traded firms listed in the S&P 1500, we find that family blockholders have a negative effect on radical innovation output in the form of citation-weighted patents and that this negative effect is intensified in the presence of activist hedge funds. Our study advances insight into the implications of ownership heterogeneity for innovation output choices in family-influenced firms.

Blockholders and real earnings management-the emerging markets context

We investigate the unexplored role of large controlling shareholders (blockholders) in constraining real earnings management (REM). We examine the mechanisms through which blockholders engage with the managers to manipulate corporate earnings. We also investigate the extent to which country-level institutional and regulatory arrangements influence the blockholders ability to mitigate REM. We show that powerful family blockholders develop a coalition to manipulate the board strategic decision making in their favour which leads to a higher level of REM. Our evidence shows that the higher quality institutional and regulatory arrangements endogenously determine the better corporate financial reporting which effectively mitigates the REM.

Migrating Family Owners and Strategic Change Performance: Unpacking the Imprinting Effects

The U.S. is an attractive melting pot for immigrants and has some of the highest domestic migration rates. A notable migration group is family business owners whose first-generation wealth makers business headquarters originated from other regions or countries. These businesses have migrated from their home headquarters, exposing their family businesses to the imprinting effects of the family migration history. This history represents an essential aspect of the family business that can influence how the family responds to environmental changes and informs their strategic performance. Using panel data from 3,369 family-firm-year observations to examine how the migration history of the family business influenced the firm’s strategic performance. Our results indicate that the family migration history of family blockholders influences a firm’s strategic performance through family governance characteristics and industry environmental uncertainty. These results illustrate how the family migration history influences the firm’s adaption and imprints onto the organization, influencing future strategic changes.

Dancing with giants: Contextualizing state and family ownership effects on firm performance in the Gulf Cooperation Council

While principal–principal problems are prevalent in emerging economies, the severity of these problems could vary based on the identity of shareholders and the institutional context. This study theoretically and empirically analyzes the effect of state and family blockholders as well as their possible interaction on financial firm performance in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Using a dataset of 389 non-financial firms and 2607 observations (2009–2015), we found that ownership held by the state as the largest shareholder has a negative effect on firm performance, whereas this negative effect disappears when the state owns between 15 % and 50 % of shares and coexists with local families as other large shareholders. Our findings contribute to the nexus between the family business and corporate governance literature by studying principal–principal agency problems and the impact of owner combinations on firm performance in emerging economies in the GCC region.

The Ownership of the Largest Family Blockholders and Korean Firm Risk

The Ownership of the Largest Family Blockholders and Korean Firm Risk

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

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

Conflitos de agência em empresas familiares de capital aberto e a composição do Conselho de Administração

O objetivo do estudo é analisar a influência dos conflitos de agência decorrentes da estrutura de propriedade sobre a presença de membros não familiares no Conselho de Administração das empresas familiares brasileiras de capital aberto. A amostra foi composta por 145 empresas familiares de capital aberto. Coletaram-se os dados nos Formulários de Referência divulgados pelas empresas do ano de 2018, utilizando-se a regressão linear com o método de Mínimos Quadrados Ordinários (MQO) e logística como procedimento de análise de dados. Os resultados apontam que há uma relação negativa entre o conflito principal-principal e a presença de membros não familiares no Conselho de Administração, bem como a relação positiva entre o conflito family blockholder e presença de membros não familiares no Conselho de Administração. Ademais, esse estudo traz como implicação evidências de que a composição do Conselho de Administração é influenciada por conflitos de agência relacionados à estrutura de propriedade das empresas familiares.

Nonfinancial Considerations in Eco‐Innovation Decisions: The Role of Family Ownership and Reputation Concerns

Societal pressures for greater sustainability can encourage firms to target part of their innovation activities at ecological initiatives (i.e., eco‐innovation). Yet, depending on their value function, firms can respond differently to such pressures and exhibit variance in their eco‐innovation activities. In this paper, we investigate the idea that a firm’s ownership structure may play a significant role in determining its engagement in eco‐innovation. Specifically, we propose that ownership by family blockholders increases the value attached to the company’s reputation and that this, in turn, stimulates higher levels of eco‐innovation. In other words, we model the company reputation motive as a key mediator in the relationship between family ownership and firm‐level eco‐innovation. To account for family firm heterogeneity, we also model the moderating role of owners’ intention to pass the business on to the next family generation (transgenerational intentions) and of the extent to which these owners reside in the firm’s local community (local embeddedness). As theoretical backdrop, our study builds on institutional theory and the mixed gamble logic. To test our hypotheses, we use a large sample of German firms and nonlinear moderated mediation regression analysis. Results reveal that family ownership is positively related to the introduction of eco‐innovations by firms, in part because of the stronger emphasis being placed on the company’s reputation. We find that this effect is strongest when the owning‐family has transgenerational intentions. As such, this study advances our understanding of firm‐level drivers of eco‐innovation. In view of the prevalence of family‐owned firms and the mounting importance of ecological sustainability, it is valuable to extend knowledge on the contingent and indirect effect of family ownership on eco‐innovation.

Family ownership and environmental performance: The mediation effect of human resource practices

AbstractPrevious literature has found that listed family firms underperform their nonfamily counterparts in terms of environmental performance, but has not explained why this occurs. We address this research gap by hypothesizing that training and development practices (i.e., managerial practices devoted to providing training and development for the workforce) mediate the relationship between family blockholders and environmental performance. Using a sample of 33,901 firm‐year observations from 2002 to 2016 distributed across 56 countries and employing the structural equation model technique, we find that investment in training and development practices explains almost half of the negative relationship between family blockholders and environmental performance. Our study contributes to the agency theory debate on principal–principal problems by explaining why family blockholders could damage other blockholders and minority shareholders.

Blockholder heterogeneity and conflicts in cross-border acquisitions

We investigate the principal-principal (PP) conflicts between large blockholders in the context of cross-border acquisitions (CBAs). We focus on the conflicts between family blockholders and two groups of financial institutional investors – banks and mutual funds. We hypothesize that different types of blockholders have heterogeneous preferences with respect to the CBA decision and outcomes. We suggest that the PP conflicts in CBA differ across the blockholders. Banks are pressure sensitive and cooperative with the management because of their clientele relationship with firms, while mutual funds are subject to more financial scrutiny and independent from the management, making them pressure resistant. When in conflict with more powerful family blockholders, mutual funds will choose to exit after a CBA decision, whereas banks are more likely to stay. With an equally distributed voting power, family and mutual fund blockholders will be more motivated to monitor over each other and jointly discipline the management, leading to more careful selection of CBAs and higher overall shareholder value. However, such effects are weak in the case of family and banks. We find support for these conjectures using data on CBAs undertaken by US public firms over the period 2003–2016.

Commentary: Blockholder Structures and Power Mechanisms in Family Firms

We extend the work of Fattoum-Guedri, Guedri, and Delmar (2018) by suggesting that the number of family blockholders moderates the relationship between the distribution of voting power between family and nonfamily blockholders and firm performance. Building on power and negotiation theories, we argue that the participation of multiple generations of family members in the firm’s ownership leads to greater diversity of perspectives that generates potential conflict over the distribution of resources. We highlight four power mechanisms—potential power, perceived power, power games, and realized power—to explain why family blockholders’ conflicting and/or misaligned preferences, objectives, and visions for the family firm might influence the nature of the negotiation between the family and the nonfamily blockholder and impact family firm performance. We offer directions for future research.

Bankrupt Family Firms

We study the role of family ownership during the bankruptcy process. We argue that at times of distress family blockholders are better positioned to manage the firm and this is appreciated by minority shareholders and lenders alike. We test this hypothesis focusing on the sample of public US corporations between 2001 and 2008. First, we show that family firms are less engaged in forum shopping, emerge from bankruptcy faster and have higher recovery rates on debt. We further show that this translates into smaller drops in stock prices around bankruptcy filings, and has implications for ex-ante borrowing yields.

Idiosyncratic risk, private benefits, and the value of family firms

Many listed companies around the world are controlled by under-diversified family blockholders, who bear idiosyncratic risk in addition to systematic risk. In this paper, we assume that these shareholders require private benefits to compensate for the additional risk. We propose a simple equilibrium model of private benefits that highlights how the idiosyncratic risk borne by a family blockholder impacts the amount of required private benefits and ultimately, the market value of the family firm.

Idiosyncratic Risk, Private Benefits, and the Value of Family Firms

Many listed companies around the world are controlled by under-diversified family blockholders, who bear idiosyncratic risk in addition to systematic risk. In this paper, we assume that these shareholders require private benefits to compensate for the additional risk. We propose a simple equilibrium model of private benefits that highlights how the idiosyncratic risk borne by a family blockholder impacts the amount of required private benefits and, ultimately, the market value of the family firm.

Corporate Ownership, Control, and Firm Performance in Victorian Britain

Scholars have long debated whether ownership matters for firm performance. The standard view regarding Victorian Britain is that family-controlled companies had a detrimental effect on performance. In this article, we examine this view using a hand-collected corporate ownership dataset. Our main finding is that it was not necessarily the broad structure of corporate ownership that mattered for performance, but whether family blockholders had a governance role. Large active blockholders tended to increase operating performance, implying that they reduced managerial expropriation. Contrastingly, we find that directors who were independent of large owners were more likely to increase shareholder value.

Taking China private: The Carlyle Group, leveraged buyouts and financial capitalism in Greater China

This article analyses the introduction of leveraged buyouts in China and Taiwan. It focuses on how leveraged buyout firms (foreign financial intermediaries) operate in institutional environments where the state and family blockholder groups are important owners and stakeholders in the private sector. The Carlyle Group’s acquisition of three companies – Xugong Group Construction Machinery; Advanced Semiconductor Engineering; and Ta Chong Bank – provide empirical case studies of stakeholder receptiveness and views on the value of Carlyle’s firm specific resources. We find that the ability of target firms to exploit the resource advantages brought by leveraged buyout firms requires a supportive institutional framework and willingness by intermediaries to adapt their strategies to a range of stakeholders’ claims.

Taking China Private: The Carlyle Group, Leveraged Buyouts and Financial Capitalism in Greater China

AbstractThis article analyses the introduction of leveraged buyouts in China and Taiwan. It focuses on how leveraged buyout firms (foreign financial intermediaries) operate in institutional environments where the state and family blockholder groups are important owners and stakeholders in the private sector. The Carlyle Group’s acquisition of three companies – Xugong Group Construction Machinery; Advanced Semiconductor Engineering; and Ta Chong Bank – provide empirical case studies of stakeholder receptiveness and views on the value of Carlyle’s firm specific resources. We find that the ability of target firms to exploit the resource advantages brought by leveraged buyout firms requires a supportive institutional framework and willingness by intermediaries to adapt their strategies to a range of stakeholders’ claims.

For Love or Money? An Extended Principal-Principal Perspective of International Acquisitions

The traditional principal-principal (PP) perspective, which focuses on the conflicts of interests between large and small shareholders, has ambiguous implications on a firm’s strategic behaviors wh...

Takeover Premiums and Family Blockholders

Blockholders impact strategic firm decisions because they are better at monitoring managers than dispersed shareholder groups. Nevertheless, we do not sufficiently understand how preferences of different blockholder types impact strategic firm decisions. We discuss this in the context of takeover premiums offered for publicly listed firms. Prior studies have argued that managers are often tempted to offer excessively high premiums. Consistently, blockholders might better control managers and ensure lower premiums. To better understand the impact of blockholder preferences, we focus on the special case of family firms. Specifically, drawing on the behavioral agency model, we hypothesize that bidders with family blockholders offer lower premiums than bidders with other blockholders or bidders without blockholders. Our empirical results support our hypotheses based on a sample of 149 takeover offers.

Family, Wealth, and Governance: An Agency Account

Family firms often evolve into ownership constellations with multiple family owners. Building on agency theory, we argue that the growing complexity within a group of family blockholders gives rise to what we label family blockholder conflicts, defined as conflicts within a group of family owners. To curb family blockholder conflicts, families often separate the family from its assets and install intermediary governance structures. We explore four frequently applied structures (uncoordinated family, embedded family office, single family office, and family trust), which vary in their degree of separation between family owners and assets and consequently the extent to which the firm might incur family blockholder costs and the double–agency costs associated with appointing agents to oversee agents. We conclude with a discussion of the distributive effects of the four family governance constellations for family wealth over time.