Increase In Ownership Concentration Research Articles

Does investor base affect the firm-level ex-ante cost of equity capital?

This research investigates how investor base affect the cost of equity capital (COE) in Indian companies, particularly in market conditions with weak investor protection and increased ownership concentration by promoters and families. Using ordinary least squares (OLS), panel fixed effects, and two-step system generalised method of moments (GMM) analysis on data spanning from 2016 to 2021, we discovered that a dispersed ownership structure is linked to a higher ex-ante COE. Our findings indicate that companies with dispersed shareholders have less motivation to monitor managers, which leads to the expropriation of minority shareholders and results in higher COE.

Ownership concentration, financial reporting quality and investment efficiency: an empirical analysis of Vietnamese listed firms

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among financial reporting quality (FRQ), ownership concentration and investment efficiency (IE) of listed firms in Vietnam, an emerging market in Southeast Asia.Design/methodology/approachMultivariate regression models are estimated to test the impacts of FRQ, ownership concentration and the interaction effect of FRQ and ownership concentration on IE. Two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators are used to control for endogeneity.FindingsThe results show that ownership concentration is positively associated with the IE of Vietnamese listed firms. The results also reveal that overinvestment decreases when there is an increase in ownership concentration. In addition, the authors find that FRQ is positively associated with IE and negatively associated with overinvestment and underinvestment. Moreover, the impact of FRQ on overinvestment is weaker in firms with concentrated ownership.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to investigate the influence of ownership concentration and the interaction effect of ownership concentration and FRQ on the IE of Vietnamese listed firms. The results provide some managerial implications for Vietnamese listed firms and policymakers on how to mitigate firm-level investment inefficiency.

New Opportunities for the Development of Corporate Governance in Power Generating Companies for the Benefit of Investors

The paper presents an analysis of the central metrics of corporate governance in wholesale and territorial generating companies of the electric power industry that concern ownership structure and compliance of the companies with the principles of the Corporate Governance Code based on their performance results of 2018 - 2019. An increase in ownership concentration and the presence of the state in the competitive segment of the electric power industry is noted. This study has identified the least met criteria for evaluating compliance with the principles of the Corporate Governance Code. The possibilities of developing corporate governance for the benefit of investors are elucidated. These are tightening control over the observance of international "soft law" ("comply or explain"); expanding the criteria for evaluating compliance with the principles of the Corporate Governance Code that are recommended by the Bank of Russia; updating the Corporate Governance Code based on ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) transformation. A new form of oversight over compliance with the Corporate Code principles and criteria for evaluating the adherence to the ESG principles are proposed.

Ownership structure and loan quality of deposit money banks in Nigeria

Purpose - This study examined the effect of Ownership Structure (Management Shareholding and Ownership Concentration) on the loan quality (LDR) of banks in Nigeria for a period of 10 years (2008-2017). The study utilized data extracted from the annual reports of the fourteen (14) studied banks.Method - Robustness tests were carried out to determine: the existence or otherwise of multi-collinearity, fitness of the model and appropriate regression analysis for the study. Descriptive statistics, correlation and Fixed Effect GLS regression were used to describe and analyze the data.Result - The study found that, ownership structure (ownership concentration and management shareholding) has significant negative effect on loan quality of banks in Nigeria.Implication - The implications of this research is that increased ownership concentration as well as management shareholding can strengthen banks’ loan quality owing to reduced proportion of depositors funds used to finance loan. This could spur confidence in the bank by the general public with regards to the safety of their deposits.Originality - This study is different from other studies that concentrated on the use of ownership structure in relations to various financial performance measurements such as ROA, ROE, NPM among other. In this study, effort was made to consider the financial health of banks owing to the nature of their business (loan).

Private Meetings Between Firm Managers and Outside Investors: The European Paradigm

Institutional ownership of listed companies has grown significantly, leading to an increase in ownership concentration in the European Union. Under the current context of re-concentrated ownership, institutional shareholders are expected, also in Europe, to play a more active role in corporate governance and to exert influence on the company’s strategies. Within such a corporate governance landscape institutional investor engagement is becoming a distinctive feature of corporate governance of European listed companies. In particular, board-shareholder dialogue is a key engagement tool and is essential in order to enable institutional investors to fulfil their stewardship functions. Board-shareholder dialogue is also core to listed companies’ communication strategies, since the growing demand for engagement by institutional investors has rendered traditional investor relations insufficient. Nevertheless, private meetings between directors and institutional investors raise concerns with respect to the financial markets law framework in the EU. In particular, the EU market abuse regime and the related principle of equal treatment for shareholders seem to hinder dialogue between directors and key shareholders. Against this background this Article shows that legal constraints deriving from EU financial markets law do not hamper institutional investor engagement. Furthermore, based on recommendations from corporate governance and stewardship codes as well as good practice standards drafted by corporate governance experts and institutions, it outlines an innovative practical framework that reduces the risk of violating disclosure rules and fosters board-shareholder engagement. In doing so, the Article provides theoretical and practical insights that can help to make institutional investor engagement more effective also in non-European countries.

Is the Rent Too High? Land Ownership and Monopoly Power

We investigate the sources, scope, and implications of landowner market power. We show how zoning regulations generate spillovers through increased markups and derive conditions under which restricting landownership concentration reduces rents. Using newbuilding-level data from New York City, we find that a 10% increase in ownership concentration in a Census tract is correlated with a 1% increase in rent. Market power is substantial: on average, markups account for nearly a third of rents in Manhattan. Furthermore, pecuniary spillovers between zoning constraints and markups at other buildings are appreciable. Up-zoning that results in 417 additional housing units at zoning-constrained buildings reduces markups on policy-unconstrained units and generates between 5 and 19 additional units through increased competition.

Does ownership structure affect the optimal capital structure? A PSTR model for China

AbstractIn the context of Chinese enterprises' privatization reforms, the relationships between ownership structure and optimal capital structure and between ownership structure and firm performance are worth attention. Using data on listed companies in China, this article uses the panel smooth transfer regression (PSTR) model and multiple regression models to test the nonlinear relationship between capital structure and firm performance. The optimal capital structure is calculated using the partial correlation function of the PSTR model, and the ownership structure–optimal capital structure relationship is analysed. This research found that (a) the effect of the debt‐to‐asset ratio on firm performance shows a nonlinear relationship with sudden changes in characteristics, and a debt‐to‐asset ratio interval exists that can significantly improve firm performance; (b) under the premise of the effect of ownership checks and balances, an increase in ownership concentration can improve the optimal capital structure; thus, enterprises can achieve effective operations with higher debt; (c) the promotion effect of ownership concentration on firm performance varies depending on a company's debt‐to‐asset ratio; and (d) different industries have different optimal capital structures. The raw materials industry has a high optimal capital structure. A series of robustness tests verify the robustness of these conclusions. This research enriches the theoretical interpretation of the optimal capital structure and provides new insights into the relationship between ownership structure and firm performance. The conclusions drawn by this article are helpful to enterprises making corresponding financial decisions and the government in formulating corresponding capital market systems.

Ownership Concentration and Agency Crises in Indian Manufacturing Firms

The study attempts to examine the dubious role of majority shareholders in internal governance in the form of moderating agency problems in Indian manufacturing firms. It uses a set of strongly balanced panel data of 91 manufacturing firms of the BSE 200 index of India from 2011–2018 and adopts panel data regression analysis to establish the relationship among the variables. The study measures ownership concentration through the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), vertical agency crisis through assets utilization efficiency (AUE) and general and administrative expenses (G&AE) and horizontal agency crisis through return on equity (ROE). The majority owners are found neither to enhance the operating efficiency nor to minimize excessive discretionary expenses of the management. Besides, a negative impact of ownership concentration on return on equity is evidenced, which indicates increased horizontal agency crisis as a consequence of increased ownership concentration. Given the dominance of majority shareholders in the Indian manufacturing sector, it would be worthwhile for corporate policymakers to know whether these large owners act as an internal disciplinary mechanism to the management or squeeze the minority shareholders’ interest through expropriation. Finally, the study suggests stricter external regulatory and institutional specificities as an alternative mechanism to ensure better corporate governance and protection of minority shareholders’ interest.

Performance Benefits of Tight Control

This study investigates the transition from being a listed company with a dispersed ownership structure to being a privately held company with a concentrated ownership structure. We consider a sample of private equity backed portfolio companies to evaluate the consequences of the corporate governance changes on operational performance. Our analysis shows significant positive abnormal growth in several performance ratios for the private period of our sample companies relative to comparable public companies. These performance differences come from the increase in ownership concentration after the leveraged buyout transaction.

Bank ownership structure, regulations and risk-taking: evidence from commercial banks in Pakistan

This paper conducts the first empirical assessment of the theories concerning the influence of ownership structure on bank risk-taking in the presence of regulations in Pakistan. The sample used in this paper comprises a panel data of 26 banks in Pakistan, for the period from 2000 to 2014. The analysis provides evidence that increase in ownership concentration leads to an increase in bank risk-taking. Managerial ownership is associated with high risk-taking at low and high levels of managerial ownership while at intermediate level, managerial ownership has negative impact on bank risk-taking. Different types of ownership of banks in Pakistan have different impact on risk-taking. While government, family and institutional ownership have a positive impact on bank risk-taking, foreign ownership has a negative impact on bank risk-taking. Furthermore, the results show that capital regulations are important in influencing bank risk-taking with regard to higher ownership concentration. The findings of this paper suggest that the relation between bank risk-taking and capital regulations typically depends on the type of ownership.

"Factors Affecting agency's costs "Applied Study on Commercial Banks Listed at the Amman Stock Exchange

This study aims to identify the factors affecting in the agency's costs in commercial banks listed at the ASE, and to achieve this goal, the researcher studying the impact of a some factors in reducing agency costs, these factors are the board size, the percentage of independent members of the board, the number of the audit Committee meetings, institutional ownership, family ownership, ownership concentration, debt financing, the bank market share, and the bank size, and the agency costs is measured using three indicators, the asset turnover index, operating expenses index, and free cash flow index. The study sample composed of all commercial banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange, which have data in the Amman Stock Exchange during the study period (2013 - 2015), which is sixteen banks, and used Excel program and Statistical Package for Social Sciences to identify the descriptive characteristics of the variables of the study, and analysis of their data, and was also used regression analysis method to test hypotheses of the study. Study results that the Agency's costs increased with increasing of board size, the independent member’s ratio, the number of meetings of the Audit Committee, institutional ownership, the family ownership, financing debt, and the bank market share, and it decreases with increasing ownership concentration according to turnover of assets index. The results of the study showed, according to operating expenses index, that the Agency's costs increased with increasing debt financing and concentration of ownership, and decreases with increasing board size and increase the family ownership, but for the free cash flow index, the results of the study showed that the Agency's costs increase with the board size, and decreases with increasing concentration of ownership.

Relationship between bank ownership concentration on capital adequacy, liquidity, and capital stability in the listed banks in Tehran stock exchange

In this study we explore the effects of ownership concentration on the risk-taking behavior of banks. Our analysis focuses on East Asian countries because these nations have successfully implemented the Basel standards and have demonstrated a high degree of regulatory convergence. For the period from 2005 to 2009, we analyzed the relation between ownership concentration and capital adequacy (Basel II) and find that an increase in ownership concentration by one standard deviation results in an improvement in capital adequacy by 32%. Motivated by public policy considerations, we analyze the impact of bank ownership structure as a governance mechanism on capital adequacy and liquidity in Asian banks. The results show that as ownership concentration rises, banks become well capitalized and more liquid. The impact is both statistically and economically significant. Our results complement recent findings reported by Peni and Vahamaa (2011) that corporate governance mechanisms are material factors in explaining banks’ behavior and their market performance. Our results also support Vauhkonen’s (2011) findings that market discipline manifested through ownership concentration significantly impacts banks’ capital adequacy, liquidity, and capital stability Keywords: Basel II; bank ownership; capital adequacy; capital stability; financial crisis

Institutional Ownership and Corporate Tax Avoidance: New Evidence

ABSTRACTWe provide new evidence on the agency theory of corporate tax avoidance (Slemrod 2004; Crocker and Slemrod 2005; Chen and Chu 2005) by showing that increases in institutional ownership are associated with increases in tax avoidance. Using the Russell index reconstitution setting to isolate exogenous shocks to institutional ownership, and a regression discontinuity design that facilitates sharper identification of treatment effects, we find a significant and discontinuous increase in tax avoidance following Russell 2000 inclusion. The tax avoidance involves the use of tax shelters, and immediate benefits include higher profit margins and likelihood of meeting or beating analyst expectations. Collectively, the results shed light on the effect of increased ownership concentration on tax avoidance.

Ownership structure and corporate tax avoidance: Evidence from publicly listed private firms in China

This study examines the association between ownership structure and corporate tax avoidance in publicly-listed private firms in China. We find a significant non-linear association between ownership concentration and tax avoidance that exhibits an inverted U-shaped pattern. At a lower level, increased ownership concentration is positively associated with tax avoidance due to the entrenchment effect. However, beyond the minimum level necessary for effective control, concentrated ownership through voting rights is negatively associated with tax avoidance because of the alignment effect. We also find a significantly positive association between pyramidal ownership structure and tax avoidance due to the entrenchment effect. When voting rights and cash-flow rights diverge, a lower level of cash-flow rights fails to offer the controlling owner incentive alignment sufficient to reduce the entrenchment effect and tax avoidance.

Institutional Ownership and Corporate Tax Avoidance: New Evidence

We provide new evidence on the agency theory of corporate tax avoidance (Slemrod, 2004; Crocker and Slemrod, 2005; Chen and Chu, 2005) by showing that increases in institutional ownership are associated with increases in tax avoidance. Using the Russell index reconstitution setting to isolate exogenous shocks to institutional ownership, and a regression discontinuity design that facilitates sharper identification of treatment effects, we find a significant and discontinuous increase in tax avoidance following Russell 2000 inclusion. The tax avoidance involves the use of tax shelters, and immediate benefits include higher profit margins and likelihood of meeting or beating analyst expectations. Collectively the results shed light on the effect of increased ownership concentration on tax avoidance.

Who Is Afraid of BlackRock?

We use the merger of BlackRock with Barclays Global Investors to study how changes in ownership concentration affect the investment behavior of financial institutions and the cross-section of stocks worldwide. We find that other institutions begin avoiding stocks that experience a merger-related increase in ownership concentration. As a result, affected stocks experience a permanent and negative price, liquidity and volatility impact. We confirm these effects in a large sample of asset management mergers over a ten year period. The interpretation that institutions strategically avoid stocks with an elevated risk of future fragility enjoys the strongest support in the data.

Ownership Concentration and Corporate Disclosure Choice in Bangladesh

This paper investigates empirically the effect of ownership concentration on corporate disclosure choice in Bangladesh. In an environment of weak enforceability of laws, corporate culture in Bangladesh is characterized by family control and concentrated ownership. Controlling shareholders exercise nearly full control over a firm’s operating and financial policies, including disclosure policies, while maintaining low cash flow rights relative to voting rights. The paper shows that management’s choice of disclosure across key financial elements is discriminatory against external shareholders and bondholders. The findings show that controlling for factors such as age, size, profitability and financial leverage, ownership concentration reduces corporate disclosure. The findings validate the hypothesis of La Porta et al. (1999) that an increasing ownership concentration leads corporate management to adopt a disclosure regime which is biased against external shareholders and creditors.

Performance Benefits of Tight Control

This study investigates the transition from being a listed company with a dispersed ownership structure to being a privately held company with a concentrated ownership structure. We consider a sample of private-equity-backed portfolio companies to evaluate the consequences of corporate governance changes on operational performance. Our analysis shows significant positive abnormal growth in several performance ratios for the private period of our sample companies relative to comparable public companies. These performance differences come from the increase in ownership concentration following a leveraged buyout transaction.

A Paradoxon of Policy Intervention: The Case of the German Tax Reduction Act

This paper provides causal evidence on the effect of ownership structure on firm value and on the impact of large tax incentives on the divestiture decision of equity blockholders by exploiting a quasi-experimental policy change in Germany. The 2000 Tax Reduction Act repealed corporate shareholders from capital gains taxation, whereas individual shareholders experienced only minor tax reductions. We show that stronger tax incentives to dispose shares do not necessarily reduce ownership concentration in the presence of strategic value premia as we find an increase in ownership concentration in firms controlled by a (tax exempt) corporate investor in response to the tax repeal. As the general policy of the German government was aiming at a more active market for corporate control via a more dispersed ownership structure, this result is not in line with the intentions of the policy makers. With respect to the relation between ownership structure and firm value the results from our difference-in-differences estimation suggest that the tax repeal was effective in removing market frictions and allowing for a more efficient shareholder structure: we find a positive relationship between ownership concentration and firm value.

Ownership Concentration and Corporate Disclosure in Bangladesh

This paper shows that non-compliance with the mandatory disclosure requirements is pervasive in Bangladesh. This is contrasted with the observation that audit opinion is often unqualified. Given that accounting standards and disclosure rules are weakly enforceable, corporate disclosure practice is de facto discretionary in the country. The present study thus investigates cross-sectional determinants of financial disclosure in corporate annual reports. The findings show that, controlling for factors such as age, size, profitability and financial leverage, disclosure effect of ownership concentration is negative. The findings validate the view of La Porta et al. (1999) that an increasing ownership concentration leads corporate management to adopt a disclosure regime which is biased against the external shareholders and creditors. The findings imply an information problem whereby insiders will likely expropriate outside shareholders in an environment where legal protection of the latter is weak.