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国际财务管理作业Chapter 1 - Test Bank (注释版)

国际财务管理作业Chapter 1 - Test Bank (注释版)

Chapter 1—Multinational Financial Management: An Overview1. The commonly accepted goal of the MNC (跨国公司) is to:a. maximize short-term earnings.b. maximize shareholder wealth (股东财富).c. minimize risk.d. A and C.e. maximize international sales.ANS: B PTS: 12. With regard to corporate goals, an MNC (跨国公司) is mostly concerned with maximizing ____, and apurely domestic firm (纯粹的国内企业) is mostly concerned with maximizing ____.a. shareholder wealth (股东财富); short-term earningsb. shareholder wealth (股东财富); shareholder wealth (股东财富)c. short-term earnings; sales volumed. short-term earnings; shareholder wealth (股东财富)ANS: B PTS: 13. For the MNC (跨国公司), agency costs (代理成本) are typically:a. non-existent.b. larger than agency costs (代理成本) of a small purely domestic firm (纯粹的国内企业).c. smaller than agency costs (代理成本) of a small purely domestic firm (纯粹的国内企业).d. the same as agency costs (代理成本) of a small purely domestic firm (纯粹的国内企业).ANS: B PTS: 14. Which of the following (下列哪个) could reduce agency problems (代理问题) for an MNC (跨国公司)?a. stock options as managerial compensation.b. hostile takeover (收购) threat.c. investor monitoring.d. all of the above (上述全部) are forms of corporate control that could reduce agencyproblems (代理问题) for an MNC (跨国公司).ANS: D PTS: 15. The valuation (评价) of an MNC (跨国公司) should rise when an event causes the expected cashflows (预期的现金流) from foreign to ____ and when foreign currencies denominating these cashflows are expected to ____.a. decrease; appreciateb. increase; appreciatec. decrease; depreciated. increase; depreciateANS: B PTS: 16. Which of the following (下列哪个) theories identifies specialization (专业化) as a reason forinternational business (国际商务)?a. Theory of Comparative Advantage (比较优势理论) (比较优势).b. Imperfect markets (不完全的市场) theory.c. product cycle (产品周期) theory.d. none of the aboveANS: A PTS: 17. Which of the following (下列哪个) theories identifies the non-transferability of resources (资源的不可转移性) as a reason for international business (国际商务)?a. Theory of Comparative Advantage (比较优势理论) (比较优势).b. Imperfect markets (不完全的市场) theory.c. product cycle (产品周期) theory.d. none of the aboveANS: B PTS: 18. Which of the following (下列哪个) theories suggests that firms seek to penetrate new markets (进入新的市场) over time?a. Theory of Comparative Advantage (比较优势理论) (比较优势).b. Imperfect markets (不完全的市场) theory.c. product cycle (产品周期) theory.d. none of the aboveANS: C PTS: 19. Which of the following (下列哪个) industries would most likely take advantage of lower costs insome less developed foreign countries?a. assembly line production.b. specialized professional services.c. nuclear missile planning.d. planning for more sophisticated computer technology.ANS: A PTS: 110. Due to the risks involved in international business (国际商务), firms should:a. only consider international business (国际商务) in major countries.b. maintain international business (国际商务) to no more than 20% of total business.c. maintain international business (国际商务) to no more than 35% of total business.d. none of the aboveANS: D PTS: 111. A product cycle (产品周期) is the process by which a firm provides a specialized sales or servicestrategy, support assistance, and possibly an initial investment in the franchise in exchange for periodic fees.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 112. Licensing (许可) is the process by which a firm provides its technology (copyrights, patents,trademarks, or trade names) in exchange for fees or some other specified benefits.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 113. The agency costs (代理成本) of an MNC (跨国公司) are likely to be lower if it:a. scatters its subsidiaries across many foreign countries.b. increases its volume of international business (国际商务).c. uses a centralized management style.d. A and B.ANS: C PTS: 114. An MNC (跨国公司) may be more exposed to agency problems (代理问题) if most of its shares areheld by:a. a few mutual funds (共同基金)b. a widely dispersed set of individual investorsc. a few pension funds (养老基金)d. all of the above (上述全部) would prevent agency problems (代理问题)ANS: B PTS: 115. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act improves corporate governance (公司治理) of MNCs (跨国公司) because it:a. makes executives more accountable for verifying financial statementsb. eliminates stock options as a form of compensationc. ties executive compensation to firm performanced. places a limit on the amount of funds that managers can spendANS: A PTS: 116. MNCs (跨国公司) can improve their internal control (内部控制) process by all of the following,except (除了):a. establishing a centralized data base of informationb. ensuring that all data are reported consistently among subsidiariesc. ensuring that the MNC (跨国公司) always borrows from countries where interest rates arelowestd. using a system that checks internal data for unusual discrepanciesANS: C PTS: 117. Franchising (特许经营) is the process by which national governments sell state owned operations tocorporations and other investors.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 118. The parent of MNC (跨国公司) can implement compensation plans (补偿计划) that directly rewardthe subsidiary (子公司) managers for enhancing the value (价值) of the MNC (跨国公司).a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 119. If a publicly-traded MNC (跨国公司)'s managers make poor decisions that reduce its value (价值), itmay encourage other firms to acquire it.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 120. Institutional investors such as mutual funds (共同基金) or pension funds (养老基金) which have largeholdings (控股) of an MNC (跨国公司)'s stock do not normally want to take control of it and therefore have no influence over management of the MNC (跨国公司).a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 121. In comparing exporting (出口) to direct foreign investment (国外直接投资) (DFI), an exporting (出口)operation will likely incur ____ fixed production costs (固定生产成本) and ____ transportation costs (运输成本) than DFI.a. higher; higherb. higher; lowerc. lower; lowerd. lower; higherANS: D PTS: 122. Which of the following (下列哪个) is an example of direct foreign investment (国外直接投资)?a. exporting (出口) to a country.b. establishing Licensing (许可) arrangements in a country.c. purchasing existing companies in a country.d. investing directly (without brokers) in foreign stocks.ANS: C PTS: 123. According to the text (教科书), a disadvantage of Licensing (许可) is that:a. it prevents a firm from importing (进口).b. it is difficult to ensure quality control of the production process.c. it prevents a firm from exporting (出口).d. none of the aboveANS: B PTS: 124. ____ are most commonly classified as a direct foreign investment (国外直接投资).a. Foreign acquisitions (国外并购)b. Purchases of international stocksc. Licensing (许可) agreementsd. Exporting (出口) transactionsANS: A PTS: 125. Imperfect markets (不完全的市场) represent conditions under which factors of production (生产要素)are immobile.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 126. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was enacted in 2002 required MNCs (跨国公司) and other firms toimplement an internal reporting process that could be easily monitored by executives and the board of directors.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 127. If markets were perfect, then labor and other costs of production would be perfectly stable (nomovement across borders).a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 128. The valuation (评价) of an MNC (跨国公司) is reduced if the required return on its investments inforeign countries is reduced.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 129. Which of the following (下列哪个) is not mentioned in the text (教科书) as an additional riskresulting from international business (国际商务)?a. exchange rate fluctuations.b. political risk (政治风险).c. interest rate risk.d. exposure (曝险) to foreign economies.ANS: C PTS: 130. Licensing (许可) obligates a firm to provide ____, while Franchising (特许经营) obligates a firm toprovide ____.a. a specialized sales or service strategy; its technologyb. its technology; a specialized sales or service strategyc. its technology; its technologyd. a specialized sales or service strategy; a specialized sales or service strategye. its technology; an initial investmentANS: B PTS: 131. Which of the following (下列哪个) is not a way in which agency problems (代理问题) can be reducedthrough corporate control?a. executive compensation.b. threat of hostile takeover (收购).c. acquisition of a foreign subsidiary (子公司).d. monitoring by large shareholders.ANS: C PTS: 132. The goal of a multinational corporation (MNC (跨国公司)) is the maximization of shareholder wealth(股东财富).a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 133. A centralized management style, where major decisions about a foreign subsidiary (子公司) are madeby the parent company, results in an increase in agency costs (代理成本).a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 134. If a U.S. firm sets up a plant in Mexico to benefit from (受益于) low cost labor, it will likely have acomparative advantage (比较优势) over other firms in Mexico that sell the same product.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 135. Although MNCs (跨国公司) may need to convert currencies occasionally, they do not face anyexchange rate risk (汇率风险), as exchange rates are stable over time.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 136. One of the most prevalent factors conflicting with the realization of the goal of an MNC (跨国公司) isthe existence of agency problems (代理问题).a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 137. A centralized management style for an MNC (跨国公司) results in relatively (相对) high agency costs(代理成本).a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 138. The Imperfect markets (不完全的市场) theory states that factors of production (生产要素) aresomewhat immobile, allowing firms to capitalize on a foreign country's resources.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 139. If a U.S.-based MNC (跨国公司) focused completely on importing (进口), then its valuation (评价)would likely be adversely affected (受到不利影响) if most currencies were expected to appreciate against the dollar over time.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 140. The acquisition of a foreign subsidiary (子公司) is commonly considered by MNCs (跨国公司)because the cost is less expensive than establishing a new subsidiary (子公司) of the same size.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 141. If a U.S.-based MNC (跨国公司) focused completely on exporting (出口), then its valuation (评价)would likely be adversely affected (受到不利影响) if most currencies were expected to appreciate against the dollar over time.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 142. If markets were perfect, then labor and other costs of production would be easily transferable.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 143. International trade (国际贸易):a. is a relatively (相对) conservative approach to foreign market penetration (市场渗透).b. entails minimal risk.c. does not require large amount of investment.d. all of the above (上述全部).ANS: D PTS: 144. Assume that (假设) an American firm wants to engage in international business (国际商务) withoutmajor investment (重大投资) in the foreign country. Which method is least (最不)appropriate in this situation?a. International trade (国际贸易)b. Licensing (许可)c. Franchising (特许经营)d. Direct foreign investment (国外直接投资)ANS: D PTS: 145. The valuation (评价) of MNC (跨国公司) accounts for all the cash flows received by the foreignsubsidiaries plus all the cash flows remitted by the subsidiaries.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 146. The MNC (跨国公司)'s value (价值) depends on all of the following, except (除了):a. MNC (跨国公司)'s required rate of return (必要回报率)b. Amount of MNC (跨国公司)'s cash flows in particular currencyc. The exchange rate at which cash flows are converted to dollarsd. The value (价值) of MNC (跨国公司) depends on all of the above (上述全部) factorsANS: D PTS: 147. Which of the following (下列哪个) is not an example of political risk (政治风险)?a. Government may impose taxes on subsidiary (子公司)b. Government may impose barriers on subsidiary (子公司)c. Consumers may boycott the MNC (跨国公司)d. Consumers' income levels will decrease, thus decreasing consumption.ANS: D PTS: 148. A microeconomic perspective focuses on external forces such as economic conditions that can affectthe value (价值) of an MNC (跨国公司).a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 149. Assume that (假设) an MNC (跨国公司) has a subsidiary (子公司) in Italy, which exports its productsto various countries in Europe. Since all of the countries where it exports use Euro as their currency, this MNC (跨国公司) is not subject to the exchange rate risk (汇率风险).a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 150. International trade (国际贸易) generally results in ____ exposure (曝险) to international political risk(政治风险) and ____ exposure (曝险) to international economic conditions, when compared to other methods of international business (国际商务).a. higher; lowerb. higher; higherc. lower; higherd. lower; lowerANS: D PTS: 151. Assume that (假设) Boca Co. wants to expand its business to Japan, and wants complete control overthe operations in Japan. Which method of international business (国际商务) is most appropriate for Boca Co?a. Joint ventureb. Licensing (许可)c. Partial acquisition of existing Japanese firmd. Establishment (建立) of Japanese subsidiary (子公司)ANS: B PTS: 152. A decentralized management style of MNC (跨国公司) results in relatively (相对) high agency costs(代理成本).a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 153. The Establishment (建立) of a new subsidiary (子公司) is commonly considered by MNCs (跨国公司)because the cost is less expensive than acquiring a foreign subsidiary (子公司) of the same size.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 154. Assume that (假设) Live Co. has expected cash flows (预期的现金流) of $200,000 from domesticoperations, SF200,000 from Swiss operations, and 150,000 euros from Italian operations at the end of the year. The Swiss franc's value (价值) and euro's value (价值) are expected to be $.83 and $1.29 respectively, at the end this year. What are the expected dollar cash flows of Live Co?a. $200,000b. $559,500c. $582,500d. $393,500ANS: B PTS: 155. Saller Co. has a subsidiary (子公司) in Mexico. The expected cash flows (预期的现金流) in pesos tobe received in the future from this subsidiary (子公司) have not changed since last month, but thevaluation (评价) of Saller Co. has declined since last month. What could've caused this decline invalue (价值)?a. A weaker Mexican economyb. Lower Mexican interest ratesc. Depreciation of the Mexican pesod. Appreciation of the Mexican peso.ANS: C PTS: 156. Jensen Co. wants to establish a new subsidiary (子公司) in Mexico that will sell computers to Mexicancustomers and remit earnings back to the U.S. parent. The value (价值) of this project will befavorably affected if the value (价值) of the peso ____ while it establishes the new subsidiary (子公司) and ____ when the subsidiary (子公司) starts operations.a. depreciates; appreciatesb. appreciates; appreciatesc. appreciates; depreciatesd. depreciates; depreciatesANS: A PTS: 157. A macroeconomic perspective focuses on the financial management decisions that affect the value (价值) of MNC (跨国公司).a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 158. An MNC (跨国公司) will always use the same required rate of return (必要回报率) in the valuation(评价) of foreign projects, as it would for its domestic projects.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 159. Livingston Co. has a subsidiary (子公司) in Korea. The subsidiary (子公司) reinvests half of its netcash flows into operations and remits half to the parent. Livingston's expected cash flows (预期的现金流) from domestic business are $100,000 and the Korean subsidiary (子公司) is expected to generate 100 million Korean won at the end of the year. The expected value (价值) of won is $.0012. What are the expected dollar cash flows of Livingston Co.?a. $100,000b. $200,000c. $160,000d. $60,000ANS: C PTS: 160. A U.S.-based MNC (跨国公司) has many foreign subsidiaries in Europe and does not expect toincrease its investment there. Its value (价值) should increase if the value (价值) of the euro weakens over time.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 161. If managers of foreign subsidiaries make decisions that maximize the value (价值)s of their respectivesubsidiaries, they automatically maximize the value (价值) of the entire corporation.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 162. A decentralized management style, where subsidiary (子公司) managers make the relevant decisionsregarding their subsidiary (子公司), may result in better decision making, as subsidiary (子公司) managers are generally better informed about their subsidiary (子公司)'s operations.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 163. U.S.-based MNCs (跨国公司) are typically not monitored by mutual funds (共同基金) and pensionfunds (养老基金), as these institutions (机构) rarely hold stock in MNCs (跨国公司).a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 164. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act ensures a more transparent process for managers to report on the productivityand financial condition of their firm.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 165. The Theory of Comparative Advantage (比较优势理论) (比较优势) begins by assuming that a givenfirm first becomes established in its home country and may subsequently penetrate foreign markets via geographic or product differentiation.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 166. Under the Imperfect markets (不完全的市场) Theory, it is assumed that factors of production (生产要素) are entirely mobile, so that firms can capitalize on a foreign country's resources.a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 167. Under the Product cycle (产品周期) Theory, foreign demand can be initially satisfied by exporting (出口).a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 168. Licensing (许可) allows firms to use their technology in foreign markets without a major investment(重大投资) in foreign countries.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 169. International trade (国际贸易) is the most common form of direct foreign investment (国外直接投资)(DFI).a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 170. When the parent's home currency (本国货币) is weak, remitted funds from foreign subsidiaries willconvert to a smaller amount of the home currency (本国货币).a. Trueb. FalseANS: F PTS: 171. A purely domestic firm (纯粹的国内企业) may be affected by exchange rate fluctuations if it faces atleast (最不)some foreign competition.a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 172. One form of an exposure (曝险) to political risk (政治风险) is terrorism (恐怖主义).a. Trueb. FalseANS: T PTS: 173. The goal of a multinational corporation (MNC (跨国公司)) isa. The minimization of taxes remitted from foreign subsidiaries.b. The Establishment (建立) of subsidiaries in any country where operations would provide areturn over and above the cost of capital, even if better projects are available domestically.c. The maximization of shareholder wealth (股东财富).d. The maximization of social benefits resulting from actions such as the employment offoreign managers.ANS: C PTS: 174. Agency costs (代理成本) faced by multinational corporations (MNCs (跨国公司)) may be larger thanthose faced by purely domestic firm (纯粹的国内企业)s becausea. Monitoring of managers located in foreign countries is more difficult.b. Foreign subsidiary (子公司) managers raised in different cultures may not follow uniformgoals.c. MNCs (跨国公司) are relatively (相对) large.d. All of the above (上述全部)e. A and B onlyANS: D PTS: 175. Which of the following (下列哪个) is not one of the more common methods used by MNCs (跨国公司) to improve their internal control (内部控制) process?a. Establishing a centralized database of informationb. Ensuring that all data are reported consistently among subsidiariesc. Speeding the process by which all departments and all subsidiaries have access to the datathat they needd. Making executives more accountable for financial statements by personally verifying theiraccuracye. All of the above (上述全部) are common methods used by MNCs (跨国公司) to improvetheir internal control (内部控制) process.ANS: E PTS: 176. Which of the following (下列哪个) is not mentioned in the text (教科书) as a theory of internationalbusiness (国际商务)?a. Theory of Comparative Advantage (比较优势理论)b. Imperfect markets (不完全的市场) Theoryc. Product cycle (产品周期) Theoryd. Globalization of Business Theorye. All of the above (上述全部) are mentioned in the text (教科书) as theories of internationalbusiness (国际商务)ANS: D PTS: 177. The most risky method(s) by which firms conduct international business (国际商务) is (are):a. Franchising (特许经营).b. The acquisitions of existing operations (现有业务的收购).c. The Establishment (建立) of new subsidiaries.d. All of the above (上述全部)e. B and C onlyANS: E PTS: 178. The least (最不)risky method by which firms conduct international business (国际商务) is:a. Franchising (特许经营).b. The acquisitions of existing operations (现有业务的收购).c. International trade (国际贸易).d. The Establishment (建立) of new subsidiaries.e. Licensing (许可)ANS: C PTS: 179. Which of the following (下列哪个) does not constitute (构成) a form of direct foreign investment (国外直接投资)?a. Franchising (特许经营)b. International trade (国际贸易)c. Joint ventures (合资企业)d. Acquisitions of existing operationse. Establishment (建立) of new foreign subsidiariesANS: B PTS: 1。

美国公司法证券法历年经典论文列表

美国公司法证券法历年经典论文列表

美国是世界上公司法、证券法研究最为发达的国家之一,在美国法学期刊(Law Review & Journals)上每年发表400多篇以公司法和证券法为主题的论文。

自1994年开始,美国的公司法学者每年会投票从中遴选出10篇左右重要的论文,重印于Corporate Practice Commentator,至2008年,已经评选了15年,计177篇论文入选。

以下是每年入选的论文列表:2008年(以第一作者姓名音序为序):1.Anabtawi, Iman and Lynn Stout. Fiduciary duties for activist shareholders. 60 Stan. L. Rev. 1255-1308 (2008).2.Brummer, Chris. Corporate law preemption in an age of global capital markets. 81 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1067-1114 (2008).3.Choi, Stephen and Marcel Kahan. The market penalty for mutual fund scandals. 87 B.U. L. Rev. 1021-1057 (2007).4.Choi, Stephen J. and Jill E. Fisch. On beyond CalPERS: Survey evidence on the developing role of public pension funds in corporate governance. 61 V and. L. Rev. 315-354 (2008).5.Cox, James D., Randall S. Thoma s and Lynn Bai. There are plaintiffs and…there are plaintiffs: An empirical analysis of securities class action settlements. 61 V and. L. Rev. 355-386 (2008).6.Henderson, M. Todd. Paying CEOs in bankruptcy: Executive compensation when agency costs are low. 101 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1543-1618 (2007).7.Hu, Henry T.C. and Bernard Black. Equity and debt decoupling and empty voting II: Importance and extensions. 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. 625-739 (2008).8.Kahan, Marcel and Edward Rock. The hanging chads of corporate voting. 96 Geo. L.J. 1227-1281 (2008).9.Strine, Leo E., Jr. Toward common sense and common ground? Reflections on the shared interests of managers and labor in a more rational system of corporate governance. 33 J. Corp. L. 1-20 (2007).10.Subramanian, Guhan. Go-shops vs. no-shops in private equity deals: Evidence and implications.63 Bus. Law. 729-760 (2008).2007年:1.Baker, Tom and Sean J. Griffith. The Missing Monitor in Corporate Governance: The Directors’ & Officers’ Liability Insurer. 95 Geo. L.J. 1795-1842 (2007).2.Bebchuk, Lucian A. The Myth of the Shareholder Franchise. 93 V a. L. Rev. 675-732 (2007).3.Choi, Stephen J. and Robert B. Thompson. Securities Litigation and Its Lawyers: Changes During the First Decade After the PSLRA. 106 Colum. L. Rev. 1489-1533 (2006).4.Coffee, John C., Jr. Reforming the Securities Class Action: An Essay on Deterrence and Its Implementation. 106 Colum. L. Rev. 1534-1586 (2006).5.Cox, James D. and Randall S. Thomas. Does the Plaintiff Matter? An Empirical Analysis of Lead Plaintiffs in Securities Class Actions. 106 Colum. L. Rev. 1587-1640 (2006).6.Eisenberg, Theodore and Geoffrey Miller. Ex Ante Choice of Law and Forum: An Empirical Analysis of Corporate Merger Agreements. 59 V and. L. Rev. 1975-2013 (2006).7.Gordon, Jeffrey N. The Rise of Independent Directors in the United States, 1950-2005: Of Shareholder V alue and Stock Market Prices. 59 Stan. L. Rev. 1465-1568 (2007).8.Kahan, Marcel and Edward B. Rock. Hedge Funds in Corporate Governance and Corporate Control. 155 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1021-1093 (2007).ngevoort, Donald C. The Social Construction of Sarbanes-Oxley. 105 Mich. L. Rev. 1817-1855 (2007).10.Roe, Mark J. Legal Origins, Politics, and Modern Stock Markets. 120 Harv. L. Rev. 460-527 (2006).11.Subramanian, Guhan. Post-Siliconix Freeze-outs: Theory and Evidence. 36 J. Legal Stud. 1-26 (2007). (NOTE: This is an earlier working draft. The published article is not freely available, and at SLW we generally respect the intellectual property rights of others.)2006年:1.Bainbridge, Stephen M. Director Primacy and Shareholder Disempowerment. 119 Harv. L. Rev. 1735-1758 (2006).2.Bebchuk, Lucian A. Letting Shareholders Set the Rules. 119 Harv. L. Rev. 1784-1813 (2006).3.Black, Bernard, Brian Cheffins and Michael Klausner. Outside Director Liability. 58 Stan. L. Rev. 1055-1159 (2006).4.Choi, Stephen J., Jill E. Fisch and A.C. Pritchard. Do Institutions Matter? The Impact of the Lead Plaintiff Provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. 835.Cox, James D. and Randall S. Thomas. Letting Billions Slip Through Y our Fingers: Empirical Evidence and Legal Implications of the Failure of Financial Institutions to Participate in Securities Class Action Settlements. 58 Stan. L. Rev. 411-454 (2005).6.Gilson, Ronald J. Controlling Shareholders and Corporate Governance: Complicating the Comparative Taxonomy. 119 Harv. L. Rev. 1641-1679 (2006).7.Goshen , Zohar and Gideon Parchomovsky. The Essential Role of Securities Regulation. 55 Duke L.J. 711-782 (2006).8.Hansmann, Henry, Reinier Kraakman and Richard Squire. Law and the Rise of the Firm. 119 Harv. L. Rev. 1333-1403 (2006).9.Hu, Henry T. C. and Bernard Black. Empty V oting and Hidden (Morphable) Ownership: Taxonomy, Implications, and Reforms. 61 Bus. Law. 1011-1070 (2006).10.Kahan, Marcel. The Demand for Corporate Law: Statutory Flexibility, Judicial Quality, or Takeover Protection? 22 J. L. Econ. & Org. 340-365 (2006).11.Kahan, Marcel and Edward Rock. Symbiotic Federalism and the Structure of Corporate Law.58 V and. L. Rev. 1573-1622 (2005).12.Smith, D. Gordon. The Exit Structure of V enture Capital. 53 UCLA L. Rev. 315-356 (2005).2005年:1.Bebchuk, Lucian Arye. The case for increasing shareholder power. 118 Harv. L. 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Derivatives, Corporate Hedging, and Shareholder Wealth: Modigliani-Miller Forty Y ears Later. 1998 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1039-1104.ngevoort, Donald C. Rereading Cady, Roberts: The Ideology and Practice of Insider Trading Regulation. 99 Colum. L. Rev. 1319-1343 (1999).ngevoort, Donald C. Half-Truths: Protecting Mistaken Inferences By Investors and Others.52 Stan. L. Rev. 87-125 (1999).11.Talley, Eric. Turning Servile Opportunities to Gold: A Strategic Analysis of the Corporate Opportunities Doctrine. 108 Y ale L.J. 277-375 (1998).12.Williams, Cynthia A. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Corporate Social Transparency. 112 Harv. L. Rev. 1197-1311 (1999).1998年:1.Carney, William J., The Production of Corporate Law, 71 S. Cal. L. Rev. 715-780 (1998).2.Choi, Stephen, Market Lessons for Gatekeepers, 92 Nw. U. L. Rev. 916-966 (1998).3.Coffee, John C., Jr., Brave New World?: The Impact(s) of the Internet on Modern Securities Regulation. 52 Bus. Law. 1195-1233 (1997).ngevoort, Donald C., Organized Illusions: A Behavioral Theory of Why Corporations Mislead Stock Market Investors (and Cause Other Social Harms). 146 U. Pa. L. Rev. 101-172 (1997).ngevoort, Donald C., The Epistemology of Corporate-Securities Lawyering: Beliefs, Biases and Organizational Behavior. 63 Brook. L. Rev. 629-676 (1997).6.Mann, Ronald J. The Role of Secured Credit in Small-Business Lending. 86 Geo. L.J. 1-44 (1997).haupt, Curtis J., Property Rights in Firms. 84 V a. L. Rev. 1145-1194 (1998).8.Rock, Edward B., Saints and Sinners: How Does Delaware Corporate Law Work? 44 UCLA L. Rev. 1009-1107 (1997).9.Romano, Roberta, Empowering Investors: A Market Approach to Securities Regulation. 107 Y ale L.J. 2359-2430 (1998).10.Schwab, Stewart J. and Randall S. Thomas, Realigning Corporate Governance: Shareholder Activism by Labor Unions. 96 Mich. L. 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Large controlling shareholders and stock price synchronicity

Large controlling shareholders and stock price synchronicity

Large controlling shareholders and stock price synchronicityqSabri Boubaker a ,b ,⇑,Hatem Mansali b ,Hatem Rjiba ba Champagne School of Management,Groupe ESC Troyes en Champagne,Troyes,France bIRG,UniversitéParis-Est,Francea r t i c l e i n f o Article history:Received 11October 2012Accepted 14November 2013Available online 1December 2013JEL classification:G14G32Keywords:Ownership structure Excess controlStock price synchronicity Crash riska b s t r a c tThis paper examines the effect of controlling shareholders on stock price synchronicity by focusing on two salient corporate governance features in a concentrated ownership setting,namely,ultimate cash flow rights and the separation of voting and cash flow rights (i.e.,excess control).Using a unique dataset of 654French listed firms spanning 1998–2007,this study provides evidence that stock price synchronic-ity increases with excess control,supporting the argument that controlling shareholders tend to disclose less firm-specific information to conceal opportunistic practices.Additionally,this study shows that firms with substantial excess control are more likely to experience stock price crashes,consistent with the con-jecture that controlling shareholders are more likely to hoard bad information when their control rights exceed their cash flow rights.Another important finding is that firms’stock prices are less synchronous and less likely to crash when controlling shareholders own a large fraction of cash flow rights.This is con-sistent with the argument that controlling shareholders have less incentive to adopt poor disclosure pol-icies and to accumulate bad news,since high cash flow ownership aligns their interests with those of minority investors.Ó2013Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.1.IntroductionIn his presidential address,Roll (1988)argues that the extent to which stock prices move together depends on the relative amounts of firm-specific and market-level information impounded into stock prices.The author finds that broad market and industry influ-ences explain only a small portion of stock price movements.1Building on these findings,Morck et al.(2000)show that R -squared is lower in countries that properly protect investors’property rights.2They argue that better protection encourages informed trad-ing,which facilitates the incorporation of firm-specific information into stock prices,leading to lower synchronicity.These seminalpapers have motivated several follow-up studies that examine the association between stock price synchronicity and efficient capital allocation (Pindyck and Rotemberg,1993;Wurgler,2000),analyst activity (Piotroski and Roulstone,2004;Chan and Hameed,2006),earnings informativeness (Durnev et al.,2003),corporate transpar-ency (Jin and Myers,2006),voluntary disclosure (Haggard et al.,2008),earnings management (Hutton et al.,2009),audit quality (Gul et al.,2010),and the adoption of International Financial Report-ing Standards (Kim and Shi,2012).However,a huge body of research documents that ownership structure affects the informational environment of a firm and its decision making.For instance,Ball et al.(2003)argue that,beyond accounting standards,the distribution of cash flow and voting rights shapes the outcome of financial reporting procedures.Other studies also show that ownership structure turns out to explain earnings management (Warfield et al.,1995),earnings informa-tiveness (Fan and Wong,2002),analyst following (Lang et al.,2004;Boubaker and Labégorre,2008),accounting conservatism (Lafond and Roychowdhury,2008),and the cost of corporate borrowing (Boubakri and Ghouma,2010;Lin et al.,2011),among others.This paper brings together these two strands of literature by addressing the important but hitherto underexplored question of whether ownership structure matters in explaining the synchro-nicity of stock price movements.In particular,it focuses on two important corporate governance characteristics in an environment where ownership is concentrated,namely,the ultimate cash flow0378-4266/$-see front matter Ó2013Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved./10.1016/j.jbankfin.2013.11.022qThe authors are grateful for the helpful comments and suggestions of Alexis Cellier,Pierre Chollet,Gilberto Loureiro,Duc K.Nguyen,Walid Saffar,Loredana Ureche-Rangau,an anonymous referee,the participants at the 2012IPAG annual conference (Nice,France),the IFABS 2012conference (Valencia,Spain),the 2013annual conference of the Multinational Finance Society (Izmir,Turkey),the 2013Financial Management Association meeting (Luxembourg),and seminar partici-pants at the Institut de Recherche en Gestion (University of Paris Est)and IESEG School of Management.All remaining errors are ours.⇑Corresponding author.Address:Groupe ESC Troyes en Champagne,Troyes,France.Tel.:+33325712231;fax:+33325492217.E-mail addresses:sabri.boubaker@get-mail.fr (S.Boubaker),hatem.mansali@univ-paris-est.fr (H.Mansali),hatem.rjiba@univ-paris-est.fr (H.Rjiba).1Roll (1988)documents that market-wide information explains,on average,35%(20%)of a firm’s monthly (daily)stock returns.2The R -squared of Morck et al.(2000)is obtained from a modified market model regression.rights of controlling shareholders and the separation of voting and cashflow rights.3This study is also motivated by a growing litera-ture providing evidence that corporate governance explains cross-sectional variations in stock returns(Gompers et al.,2003;Cremers and Nair,2005;Bebchuk et al.,2009).More specifically,it follows in the footsteps of Gompers et al.(2010),who attempt to assess the di-rect linkage between ownership structure and stock returns in U.S. dual-classfirms.This linkage is based on the idea that ownership structure affects managerial incentives and therefore exacerbates/ mitigates agency problems between controlling and minority inves-tors,which affectsfirms’information environment and stock returns.Contrary to Berle and Means(1932),the corporate governance literature establishes that the presence of controlling shareholders is pervasive around the world(La Porta et al.,1999).Holderness et al.(1999)find thatfirms with dominant shareholders are wide-spread,even in the United States.Claessens et al.(2000)examine a sample of2982listedfirms in nine East Asian countries.Theyfind that roughly67%of the samplefirms are controlled by at least one large shareholder.Similarly,Faccio and Lang(2002)study the shareholdings of5232listedfirms covering13Western European countries.They show that ownership structure is concentrated in around63%of thefirms.These studies have cast doubt on the ownership structure of the modern corporation pictured by Berle and Means(1932)and have therefore shown that the relevant agency problem is not between shareholders and professional managers(Jensen and Meckling, 1976)but between large shareholders and minority investors,as advanced by Shleifer and Vishny(1997).Theoretical papers argue that ownership concentration helps mitigate agency conflicts be-tween large and small shareholders inasmuch as higher ownership stakes increase the interest of large shareholders in afirm.As evi-denced in previous empirical studies,concentrated ownership im-proves the informational environment of thefirm(e.g.,Warfield et al.,1995).Considering this line of inquiry,our study aims to examine the effect of ownership concentration on the information content offirms’stock prices and particularly stock price synchronicity.However,due to the extensive use of control-enhancing mech-anisms,including dual-class stocks and pyramid schemes,voting rights often exceed cashflow rights.Therefore,large shareholders are endowed with enhanced control compared to their interests in thefirm,which may give rise to agency conflicts with minority investors that can take the form of private benefit consumption through tunneling(Bertrand et al.,2002),outright theft(Shleifer and Vishny,1986;Johnson et al.,2000),inefficient empire building acquisitions(Masulis et al.,2009),the misuse of cash stockpiles (Attig et al.,2009),and higher employee remuneration(Cronqvist et al.,2009),among other things.Moreover,numerous studies pro-vide evidence that the control–ownership wedge shapes the corpo-rate information environment(Fan and Wong,2002;Haw et al., 2004;Attig et al.,2006).However,the way it impinges on the information content of stock prices remains an intriguing and little explored question.Our study aims tofill this void.Using a sample of654French listedfirms from1998to2007, we document a strong positive relationship between the control–ownership wedge and stock price synchronicity.This result supports our hypothesis that the separation of control and cash flow rights precludes information disclosure to the market.Con-versely,wefind that synchronicity decreases with the ultimate cashflow rights of the largest controlling shareholder,which is consistent with the argument that concentrated ownership facili-tates the dissemination offirm-specific information.We conduct further analyses to examine the relation between ownership struc-ture and crash risk.Our results show thatfirms with a larger con-trol–ownership wedge(cashflow concentration)feature more (fewer)stock price crashes.This paper contributes to the literature that studies the effect of ownership structure on stock price behavior in several ways.First, it empirically tests the effect of the separation of control and cash flow rights on stock price synchronicity.To the best of our knowl-edge,the current paper is thefirst to directly address this issue. Second,a large amount of research examines how stock price cash risk is influenced by the extent of voluntary disclosure(Haggard et al.,2008),financial statement transparency(Hutton et al., 2009),equity incentives(Kim et al.,2011a),corporate tax avoid-ance(Kim et al.,2011b),institutional investors(Callen and Fang, 2012),and management earnings guidance(Hamm et al.,2012), among other things.This paper provides new evidence to this fast-growing literature by examining how the control–ownership wedge and cashflow concentration affect stock price crash risk. Finally,unlike Brockman and Yan(2009),who conduct their study in the U.S.context,where ownership is widely dispersed and the relevant agency problem is between professional managers and all shareholders,and Gul et al.(2010),who focus on the Chinese context,wherefirms are typically state owned,we carry out our analysis in a concentrated ownership environment,namely, France,dominated by familyfirms and characterized by a substan-tial separation of control and cashflow rights maintained mainly through non-voting shares,double-voting shares,and pyramid schemes.This framework allows us to trace ownership structure back to the ultimate owner and,hence,to accurately assess the severity of agency problems between controlling and minority shareholders.The remainder of the paper is structured as follows.Section2 develops our hypotheses.Section3describes the data and presents the construction of the variables.Section4reports summary statis-tics and correlations between the variables.Section5discusses the empirical results.Section6conducts additional analyses.Section7 performs various robustness checks and thefinal section concludes the paper.2.Hypothesis developmentThis section develops our hypotheses on the effect of ownership structure on the extent to which stock prices impound industry-and market-wide information relative tofirm-specific information in a concentrated ownership context.In particular,it focuses on how stock price synchronicity is affected by the separation of vot-ing and cashflow rights and ownership concentration.2.1.Excess control and stock price synchronicityGrossman and Hart(1988)demonstrate that deviation from the one share–one vote rule maximizes the benefits of control for the controlling party relative to security holders and thus may not be socially optimal.Shleifer and Vishny(1997)argue that as owner-ship increases beyond a certain level,insiders gain almost full con-trol of thefirm and may prefer to extract private benefits of control that do not accrue to minority shareholders.This problem is more pronounced when control rights exceed cashflow claims (Claessens et al.,2002).Bebchuk(1999)demonstrates that when the private benefits of control are sizable,controlling shareholders strive to maintain a lock on thefirm to maximize rent extraction.Based on these arguments,we claim that a significant control–ownership wedge undermines the corporate informational envi-ronment.The underlying premise is that controlling shareholders, to hide any egregious opportunistic behavior,may opt for poor3Since corporate control is measured based on voting rights,we use the termsvoting rights and control rights interchangeably.We also use excess control and control–ownership wedge as substitutes.S.Boubaker et al./Journal of Banking&Finance40(2014)80–9681disclosure policies by either reducing information disclosure to outsiders or publishing unintelligible,untimely,or irrelevant information.4Vast empirical evidence is consistent with the above arguments. Emphasizing the role of both legal and extra-legal institutions, Haw et al.(2004)document that a large control–ownership wedge stimulates insiders’proclivity for aggressive income management. Consistently,Fan and Wong(2002)argue that earnings are less informative when the separation of control and cashflow rights is substantial,since controlling shareholders are perceived to alter accounting information.5Attig et al.(2006)assert that such separa-tion allows controlling shareholders to pursue personal agendas at minority shareholders’expense through minimizing and delaying information disclosure.The authors document that a large control–ownership wedge increases the information asymmetry component of the bid–ask spread,leading to less liquid stocks.Lee(2007)finds that in the very situation where control exceeds cashflow rights, reducing corporate voluntary disclosure represents a mechanism that allows dominant shareholders to continue obtaining higher pri-vate benefits of control without being easily detected by minority investors.More recently,Bona-Sánchez et al.(2011)find that large controlling shareholders are less likely to recognize losses on a timely basis infirms exhibiting greater separation of control and cashflow rights.The underlying premise behind this result is that thesefirms are perceived to have higher expropriation risk and therefore face higher externalfinancing costs.Controlling sharehold-ers are consequently more likely to rely on internalfinancing chan-nels,which reduces the demand for conservativefinancial reporting.The above arguments suggest thatfirms are more likely to dis-seminate low-qualityfinancial information material when the con-trol–ownership wedge is large.Hence,less accuratefirm-specific information is available to outsiders.In a seminal paper,Jin and Myers(2006)set up a model in which they show that lack of trans-parency about afirm’s performance,that is,opaqueness,shapes the division of risk bearing between insiders and outside investors. The underlying rationale is that insiders have incentives to operate in a less transparent information environment when higher opaqueness allows them to extract private benefits by capturing more cashflows from profitablefirms.Thus,insiders bear a higher proportion offirm-specific risk,reducing the amount offirm-spe-cific risk absorbed by outside ing a panel of40coun-tries,these authors give empirical support to their theoretical model by showing that greater opaqueness translates to higher levels of stock price synchronicity.A growing body of research is also consistent with thesefindings.For example,Haggard et al. (2008)find thatfirms with reduced voluntary disclosure policy, as proxied by lower Association for Investment Management and Research rankings,have greater stock price comovement.Hutton et al.(2009)show thatfirm opacity reduces idiosyncratic volatility. Khanna and Thomas(2009)document that blurredfirm boundaries resulting from networks of shared ownership,equity ties,and interlocking directorates reducefirm-level transparency, resulting in higher stock price synchronicity.Gul et al.(2011)find that Chinesefirms with high levels of perk consumption are less likely to appoint a high-quality auditor,which precludes,in turn, the incorporation offirm-specific information into stock prices, leading to more synchronous stock returns.All in all,the literature shows that the separation of control and cashflow rights underminesfirms’financial reporting quality and exacerbates information asymmetry problems between large and small investors.Based on the theoretical predictions of Jin and Myers’(2006)model,we expect that the stock prices offirms with a large control–ownership wedge are less likely to incorporate firm-specific information compared to market-level information and are thus more synchronous with broad market movements. Drawing on the above discussion,we posit the following hypothesis.H1.Stock price synchronicity increases with the excess control of the ultimate controlling shareholder.2.2.Ownership concentration and stock price synchronicityThe literature suggests that ownership concentration helps mit-igate the conflict of interests between controlling and minority shareholders.For example,Grossman and Hart(1980)contend that concentrated ownership is expected to alleviate the free-rider problem by giving shareholders with substantial ownership incen-tives to effectively controlfirm activities.Consistently,Demsetz (1983)and Shleifer and Vishny(1986)argue that the existence of large shareholders leads to the better monitoring of incumbent managers and thus curbs the extraction of private benefits.Gomes (2000)develops a model that shows that higher ownership con-centration serves to build a reputation for insiders who credibly commit themselves to not expropriate outside investors.Thus, controlling shareholders may be reluctant to indulge in opportu-nistic rent-seeking activities,to preserve their reputation,and are consequently more inclined to disclose credible and high-quality information for the benefit of minority shareholders.This is consis-tent with Fama(1980)and Diamond(1989),who theorize that rep-utation plays a disciplinary role infinancial markets and helps mitigate agency problems and information asymmetry between managers and outside investors.Faure-Grimaud and Gromb (2004)propound another plausible explanation of the incentive alignment effect of concentrated ownership.They claim that large shareholders have incentives to pursue value-increasing activities since stock prices make their efforts observable to outsiders through public trading.Drawing on the above arguments,we argue that large share-holders are less inclined to conceal information when they hold large ownership stakes in afirm.Rather,they have incentives to disseminate more and betterfirm-specific information.Empiri-cally,Warfield et al.(1995)report a decrease in the magnitude of discretionary accounting accrual adjustments along with an in-crease in earnings informativeness as insider ownership increases. Yafeh and Yosha(2003)show that high ownership levels are asso-ciated with lower discretionary expenditures.Grossman and Stiglitz(1980)contend that inexpensive private information acquisition increases informed trading and leads to more informative pricing.In the spirit of Grossman and Stiglitz (1980),Veldkamp(2006)sets out a model showing that cheaper access tofirm-specific information reduces investor reliance on market-and industry-wide signals when pricing individual assets, which leads to lower stock price comovement.Piotroski and Roulstone(2004)argue that the incorporation of information into4Admittedly,controlling shareholders may resolve information asymmetrythrough more reliance on private communication channels,rather than publicdisclosure,when they hold substantial voting rights,which undermines thefirm’sinformation environment and yields higher stock price synchronicity.5Although some of our results are expected,based on Fan and Wong(2002),thereare several important differences between the two papers.First,we provide a morethorough understanding of how controlling shareholders influence stock pricebehavior by examining the effect of ultimate cashflow rights and excess control onstock return synchronicity,crash risk likelihood,and crash risk frequency.Second,werely on a market-based measure of price informativeness instead of an accounting-based measure as in Fan and Wong(2002).This point is particularly important,sinceJin and Myers(2006)argue that accounting numbers are more likely to bemeaningless and misleading,even in the United States,which may garble thereturn–earnings association.Moreover,several papers contend that accountingearnings do not precisely reflect afirm’s underlying fundamentals in weak investorprotection environments,such as France,which makes the return–earnings relationless accurate to capture stock price informativeness.82S.Boubaker et al./Journal of Banking&Finance40(2014)80–96stock prices depends on the informational advantage of different market participants.The authors claim that high ownership facilitates access tofirm-level information and encourages informed trading,reducing stock price synchronicity.Since controlling share-holders are more likely to disseminate morefirm-specific informa-tion(Gul et al.,2010),we expect that owning a large fraction of a firm’s shares increases the amount offirm-level information avail-able to the market,which reduces reliance on market-wide informa-tion and decreases the synchronicity of stock price movements.Studying U.S.firms,Brockman and Yan(2009)find that owner-ship concentration encourages the incorporation offirm-specific information into stock prices,thus leading to a higher probability of informed trading,more idiosyncratic variation,and less syn-chronicity.Similar results are found for Chinesefirms by Gul et al.(2010),who show that synchronicity decreases forfirms with higher direct ownership levels.Based on the previous discussion, we present our testable hypothesis as follows.H2.Stock price synchronicity decreases with the cashflow rights of the ultimate controlling shareholder.3.Data and variable constructionWe start our sample with all French listedfirms during1998–2007appearing in the Worldscope database.For conformity with previous studies,we confine our analysis to non-financialfirms, sincefinancial corporations—those with Standard Industrial Classi-fication(SIC)codes6000–6999—are heavily regulated and gov-erned by specific accounting standards,making their accounting numbers incomparable to those of otherfirms.We obtain weekly market-andfirm-level returns from the Datastream database. For afirm to be included in the sample,we require it to have at least30weeks of observations.To identifyfirms listed on U.S.mar-kets,we gather information on American Depository Receipt(ADRs)listings from the Bank of New York and Deutsche Bank dat-abases.In the absence of a standardized database that contains ownership and control data,we hand-collect information on voting and cashflow rights fromfirms’annual reports,available onfirms’websites or from the Autoritédes Marchés Financiers.6Firms with insufficient ownership information or missingfinancial data for computing control variables were excluded from the sample.We allowfirms to enter and exit the panel to limit the effect of survivor-ship bias.After these screens are applied,our(unbalanced)sample consists of654uniquefirms,totaling4561firm–year observations.7 Table1provides sample distributions by year and by industry.Panel A shows that there is no significant difference in the number of observations across the sample years.Panel B reports the sample dis-tribution by industry based on Campbell’s(1996)industry classifica-tion.Most of the observations come from three main industries: services(24.38%),consumer durables(18.83%),and textile and trade (11.29%).These industries account for about55%of the whole sam-ple.Firms belonging to the petroleum industry are the least repre-sented,with less than1%of the samplefirms.3.1.Ownership structure variablesThe procedure of identifying ultimate ownership and control patterns follows the approach outlined by La Porta et al.(1999) and Faccio and Lang(2002).In each layer of the control chain,we identify the direct owner of thefirm,the direct owner of this direct owner,and so on,until we reach the ultimate owner,that is,a shareholder who maintains at least10%of afirm’s voting rights without being controlled by anyone else.8Ultimate owners fall into one of four categories:family,state,widely heldfirm,and widely heldfinancial institution.If no shareholder holds more than 10%of the voting rights,then thefirm is considered to be widely held at that threshold.9We compute the ultimate cashflow rights of the largest controlling shareholder(UCF)as the sum of the products of direct cashflow rights along the different ownership chains and its ultimate control rights as the sum of the weakest links across all these chains.Excess control(Excess)is defined as the difference between the ultimate control and cashflow rights of the largest controlling share-holder,scaled by ultimate control rights(UCOÀUCF)/UCO). Appendix B(Figs.1and2)describes the method of computing ownership and control variables using two actual examples.3.2.Stock price synchronicityWe use the stock price synchronicity proposed by Roll(1988) and further developed by Morck et al.(2000)as a proxy for Table1Sample characteristics.Fiscal year Number ofobservationsPercentagePanel A:Year distribution19984369.5619994379.5820004329.4720014539.93200248710.68200348410.61200445710.0220054489.8220064529.91200747510.42Total4561100.00Industry Number ofobservationsPercentagePanel B:Industry distributionPetroleum(SIC13,29)380.83Consumer durables(SIC25,30,36,37,50,55,57)85918.83Basic industry(SIC10,12,14,24,26,28,33)46010.09Food and tobacco(SIC1,20,21,54)313 6.86Construction(SIC15,17,32,52)206 4.52Capital goods(SIC34,35,38)48810.70Transportation(SIC40,42,44,45,47)115 2.52Utilities(SIC46,48,49)175 3.84Textiles and trade(SIC,22,23,31,51,53,56,59)51511.29Services(SIC72,73,75,80,82,89)111224.38Leisure(SIC27,58,70,78,79)280 6.14Total4561100.00This table(Panel A)reports the sample distribution across years.Panel B reports the sample distribution across industries based on Campbell’s(1996)industrial clas-sification.The sample contains4561firm–year observations from1998to2007. Financialfirms(SIC60–69)are discarded from our sample.6Autoritédes Marchés Financiers is the French equivalent of the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission.7We apply additional screens by excluding regulated utilities(SIC codes4900–4999)and cross-listedfirms to ensure that all sampledfirms operate under the same information environment and face the same disclosure requirements.Overall,the inclusion of thesefirms does not seem to change our main results(unreported).8Although setting a control cutoff point of10%is somewhat arbitrary,a substantial body of literature argues that this level is sufficient to exert effective control over a firm.Besides,the use of a10%threshold is common in the relevant literature(e.g.,La Porta et al.,1999;Claessens et al.,2002;Attig et al.,2006).To ensure the robustness of ourfindings,we repeat the analysis using the control cutoff point of20%.Our results remain qualitatively unchanged(see Table10,Eq.(5)).9We follow Haw et al.(2004)and Attig et al.(2006),among others,and assign a value of zero to the control–ownership wedge of widely heldfirms.As a robustness check,we exclude thesefirms and repeat our tests with only the sample of controlled firms.The results remain qualitatively unaffected(see Table10,Eq.(6)).S.Boubaker et al./Journal of Banking&Finance40(2014)80–9683。

QTCEnergyPLC-TRISRating

QTCEnergyPLC-TRISRating

Rating RationaleTRIS Rating assigns the company rating of QTC Energy PLC (QTC) at “BBB”. The rating reflects the company’s growth prospects derived from rising demand for electricity, QTC’s ability to provide specialized distribution transformers, and its proven track record as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). The rating also takes into consideration the management’s strategy to pursue the automation production. These strengths are partially constrained by intense competition in the domestic market for distribution transformers, customer concentration risk, and volatile raw material prices. Demand in the mining industry, a key end-user segment for QTC’s export market, remains soft and thus is a rating concern.QTC was established in 1996 and listed on the Market for Alternative Investment (MAI) in July 2011. Mr. Poonphiphat Tantanasin, the chief executive officer, and his family are the major shareholders, with a combined stake of 63% as of September 2014. QTC is one of the medium-sized manufacturers of electrical transformers, making distribution transformers under its own brand “QTC”.Located in Pluakdaeng, Rayong province, QTC has steadily incorporated more automation into its plant. Automation cuts production lead times, reduces the reliance on skilled labor, and lowers cost s. These benefits increase QTC’s competitive position. QTC’s products have passed stringent tests, such as the short circuit withstand, conducted by two internationally recognized laboratories, CESI in Italy and KEMA in the Netherlands. Moreover, QTC is accredited by several independent international standards setting organizations, backed by various accomplished certifications such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, and ISO/IEC 17025. QTC mainly offers the distribution transformer. However, its product covers the capacity range of 1-30,000 kilovolt-amperes (KVA ) at system voltage up to 72 kilovolts (kv ).In 2013, 95% of QTC’s total revenue came from the sale of distribution transformers, 1% from power transformers, and 2% from services. QTC’s customer base comprises state enterprises (34% of total revenue), private companies (43%), and export customers (20%). QTC has established a long relationship with an Australian agent which it supplies the OEM product. As a result, QTC could secure a certain amount of export sales annually and has gained expertise in two market segments: mining, and oil & gas. QTC is exposed to customer concentration risk, since around half of its revenue depends on three major customers: two electricity authorities in Thailand, the Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) and the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA), and its export agent in Australia.In the distribution transformer segment, competition is intense. There are approximately 25 manufacturers in Thailand. However, half of them are small manufacturers and are not qualified to supply to the electricity authorities or large corporations. In the domestic market, the electricity authorities, the MEA and the PEA, are the main end-users of distribution transformers. These agencies haveNo. 125/2014 24 December 2014Page 2been given the responsibilities to develop the electricity transmission system for the nation. The customers in private sector are, for example, industrial factories, large buildings, and infrastructure projects which require specialized and reliable transformers.QTC’s operation s were hurt by the recent political crisis in Thailand. The round of anti-government protests, which started in late October 2013, delayed bids for many state enterprise projects and dampened investments made by the private sector. Moreover, QTC’s export orders were hurt from declining demand of the mining sector in Australia. As a result, QTC’s revenue dropped by 16% year on year (y-o-y) to Bt804 million in 2013. During the first nine months of 2014, revenue continued to decline, slipping by 23% y-o-y to Bt383 million. PEA has suspended the bidding for electricity transformer since the fourth quarter of 2013 through the year 2014. The value of the transformers QTC sold to state enterprises during the first nine months of 2014 plunged to Bt22 million, from Bt149 million during the same period of 2013. Nonetheless, QTC’s operating performance is expected to recover in the last quarter of the year as QTC has schedule to deliver approximately Bt360 million worth of transformers in the fourth quarter of 2014. As a result, total revenue in 2014 will drop only about 5% from the 2013 level.QTC’s operating margin before depreciation and amortization dropped slightly to 16% in 2013, compared with 18.8% in 2012, and further declined to -2.6% for the first nine months of 2014. The significant drop of QTC’s profitability was due to the absence of contribution from state enterprises and the intensified competition in private sector. In general, the sales to state enterprises carry higher margin due to the sizeable volume. For the full year, the operating margin is expected to recover to around 10%. QTC will clear some of its backlog, which includes some orders from the MEA bid in October 2014.QTC’s liquidity profile is strong, as evidenced by the funds from operations (FFO) to total debt ratio and the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) interest coverage ratio. During 2008-2013, QTC’s FFO to total debt ratio was satisfactory, reaching over 75%. The EBITDA interest coverage ratio stayed higher than 15% in the same period. However, the FFO to total debt ratio dropped significantly to 28.1% (annualized, from the trailing 12 months) at the end of September 2014, as a result of Q TC’s weaker operating performance.Most of QTC’s debts are short-term loans, which QTC needs to finance its working capital requirements. QTC’s debt to capitalization ratio was below 30% from 2008 through 2013. Owing to the high level of backlog and inventory, the debt to capitalization ratio increased to 32.4% at the end of September 2014. QTC’s financial leverage is expected to improve at the year-end once it delivers most of the backlog. In the medium term, QTC’s financial leverage is not expected to rise significantly from its existing operation. QTC has a plan to diversify into power business. The new investment, if sizeable, should be considered a ring-fence financing or partly financed by new equity injection to support the strong capital structure.Rating OutlookThe “stable” outlook reflects the expectation that QTC will improve its profitability and operating cash flow, despite intense competition and the event risk which may affect the distribution transformer market. The significant increase in debt, if any, could negatively impact QTC’s financial profile and credit rating.QTC Energy PLC (QTC)Company Rating:BBB Rating Outlook:StablePage 3Financial Statistics and Key Financial RatiosUnit: Bt million*Annualized with trailing 12 monthsTRIS Rating Co., Ltd.Tel: 0-2231-3011 ext 500 / Silom Complex Building, 24th Floor, 191 Silom Road, Bangkok 10500, Thailand -------------------------- Year Ended 31 December ----------------------Jan-Sep 20142013 2012 2011 2010 2009 Total revenue 383 804 960 714 521 511 Gross interest expense 5 7 8 7 5 5 Net income from operations (32) 75 119 84 44 33 Funds from operations (FFO) (2)110 146 112 65 55 Capital expenditures 44 82 78 61 47 24 Total assets 737 736 789 570 357 356 Total debt195 136 187 78 67 54 Shareholders’ equity407 475 463 380 223 251 Operating income before depreciation and amortization as % of sales(2.56)16.0118.8020.37 16.62 13.50 Pretax return on permanent capital (%) 4.44 * 15.93 29.46 33.31 23.08 18.47 Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) interest coverage (times) (0.55)19.6524.67 20.66 18.73 15.24 FFO/total debt (%) 28.09 * 80.45 77.80144.18 96.75 100.89 Total debt/capitalization (%) 32.3822.2828.8016.9823.2017.72© Copyright 2014, TRIS Rating Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized use, disclosure, copying, republication, further transmission, dissemination, redistribution or storing for subsequent use for any purpose, in whole or in part, in any form or manner or by any means whatsoever, by any person, of the credit rating reports or information is prohibited. The credit rating is not a statement of fact or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any debt instruments. It is an expression of opinion regarding credit risksfor that instrument or particular company. The opinion expressed in the credit rating does not represent investment or other advice and should therefore not be construed as such. Any rating and information contained in any report written or published by TRIS Rating has been prepared without taking into account any recipient’s particular financial needs, circumstances, knowledge and objectives . Therefore, a recipient should assess the appropriateness of such information before making an investment decision based on this information. Information used for the rating has been obtained by TRIS Rating from the company and other sources believed to be reliable. Therefore, TRIS Rating does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any such information and will accept no liability for any loss or damage arising from any inaccuracy, inadequacy or incompleteness. Also, TRIS Rating is not responsible for any errors or omissions, the result obtained from, or any actions taken in reliance upon such information. All methodologies used can be found at /en/rating-information/rating-criteria.html .。

Walmart

Walmart

WalmartBRIEF INTRODUCTIONWal-Mart is a company based in North America but has become the largest retailer and is larger than any other retail chain in the world. It is clear that Wal-Mart is growing and gaining international power at an alarming rate. Wal-Mart journey from humble beginnings in the 1960s as a folksy discount retailer in the boondocks of Arkansas to a global retailing juggernaut in 2008 was unprecedented among the company of the world: Sales were expected to exceed $400 billion in fiscal 2009. Wal-Mart provides general merchandise: family apparel, health & beauty aids, household needs, electronics, toys, fabrics, crafts, lawn & garden, jewelry and shoes. Also, the company runs a pharmacy department, Tire & Lube Express, and Photo processing center as well.There are also many secondary issues surrounding the Wal-Mart Corporation and its large growth. It is the largest retail company in the United States and has been ranked number one on the Fortune 500 Index by Fortune Magazine. Wal-Mart has four parts to their corporate strategy.1. Dominance in the Retail Market2. Expansion in the U.S. and International Markets3. Creation of Positive Brand and Company Recognition4. Branch Out into New Sectors of RetailIn recent years, Wal-Mart is very active in the market, as the world's largest multinational retailer?s enterprises. There are more and more stores all over the world, more and more competitors at the same time, if the company wants to maintain their position in the international market, they need to make appropriate strategic transformation to adapt to the development of the international market, this way is useful for the enterprise to survive for a long time.In June 2008, Wal-Mart?s CEO, H. Lee Scott, presented a glowing report to the est imated 16000 shareholders attending the company?s annual shareholder meeting held at the 19,000-seat Bud Walton Arena on the University of Arkansas campus, located a few miles from Wal-Mart?s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.SWOTSTRENGTHScale of operations. Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world .It makes Wal-Mart the giant that no other retailer can match. Due to such large scale of operations, the corporate can exercise strong buyer power on suppliers to reduce the prices. It can also achieve higher economies of scale than competitors because of its size. Higher economies of scale results in lower prices that are passed to consumers.Competence in information systems. The company has a core competence involving its use of information technology to support its international logistics system. For example, it can see how individual products are performing country-wide, store-by-store at a glance. IT also supports Wal-Mart's efficient procurement.Wide range of products. Wal-Mart can offer wider range of products than any other retailer. It sells grocery, entertainment, health and wellness, apparel and home related products among many other categories and offers both branded and own label goods. Wide range of products attracts more customers to Wal-Mart stores.Cost leadership strategy. This strategy has helped Wal-Mart to become the low cost leader in the retail market. The price of products is lower than supermarket in the around. Wal-Mart reduces the cost about some important meeting and facilities of leadership.The high-speed development of the enterprise. We can see Wal-Mart's net sales, net income and shareholders' equity is growing every year. It shows that in addition to solvency is relatively weak; other indicators have shown Wal-Mart powerful force. Wal-Mart's solvency is weak because it wants to global expansion, for such a high-speed development of business, I think it is acceptable.WEAKNESSWal-Mart…s low cost had resulted in substandard wages and insufficient medical benefits for employees. It has poor work conditions, low wages, unpaid overtime work and female discrimination. Because of this, the workers quality is low. Comparing with other competitors who have focused products, Wal-Mart has lower flexibility. It sells products across manysectors such as clothing, food and other departments. Due to product diversity, Wal-Mart exist competitive weakness.Wal-Mart has a bad image to consumer. Wal-Mart supports sustainable development, but it has more speak than action. On the other hand, awful employee benefit gives the world a bad image.In local branch store, senior executives are accrediting, it?s contradictory strategyabout localization development. The lack of local mangers can cause culture difference. It is short of interactive management between firm and employees.From table two we can get a conclusion that Wal-Mart stores exist around the world. The big scale takes many problems and the big span in management will reduce controlling force.The table one shows that the Current Ratio is lower than 1.0 since 2004. The Wal-Mart has low ability to pay current liabilities. The Return on Assets came down every year. It proved that company has bad effects on utilization of assets. The Return on Shareholders? equity was also declined every year, owners? equity can make a profit in a weak level. Based on current assets and current liabilities, it has negative data from 2000-2008, it means Wal-Mart has finance problem.OPPORTUNITYOpenings to win market share from rivals. From example, Kmart, Target and Carrefour. Moreover, in the warehouse club segment the two largest competitors were Costco Wholesale and Sam?s Clubs.Expanding into new geographic markets. Wal-Mart is expanding aggressively in Brazil and China. But Wal-Mart has not exploited this market fully. Wal-Mart should use localized strategy to open this market entirely.Acquiring rival firms or companies with attractive technological expertise or capabilities. By this approach, the Wal-Mart can decrease its fixed cost when it enters a new market.Falling trade barrier in attractive foreign markets.Online sales via the internet.Sharply rising buyer demand for the industry?s product.THREATWal-Mart's leading position in the retail industry become the target of all competitors to catch upWal-Mart's global strategy may encounter political issues in operating country.The cost of a variety of consumer products tends to decline because of lower manufacturing costs. The main cause of lower manufacturing costs is to outsource production to low-cost regions of the world. This led to price competition, and caused deflation in some areas. Intense price competition is a threat.The company is operating under high financial risk because of blind expansion.As the result, the company will fall into a debt crisis and make chance for other competitors.Wal-Mart keeps a close relationship with a supplier and makes it difficult for other better suppliers to gain access to Wal-Mart?s shelf place and consumers, creating a type of entry barrier for those suppliers.PROBLEM1.What is Wal-Mart?s product choosing?Wal-Mart operates mainly in the choice of varieties of goods sold big, fast turnaround, buy more mid-range frequency of commodity-based, and moderate both high and low commodity combinations.2.Does Wal-Mart have problem about relationships of suppliers and customers?a)About supplies: Wal-Mart plays a god in front of the supplier by buying power. The suppliers are awed and want to get a close relationship with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart keeps a close relationship with a supplier and makes it difficult for other better suppliers to gain access to Wal-Mart?s shelf place and consumers, creating a type of entry barrier for those suppliers.b)About customer: Wal-Mart does some bad things which displease the customers. As example, dumped trash at a disposal site, closed a store as a reprisal against unionization, sold guns to violations, sold toy guns with an orange cap at the end of the barrel in New York without permission, ignored customers? suggestions and discrimination on female employees.3.What is the use of Acquisitions to expand into Foreign Markets forWal-Mart?s?In recent years, Wal-Mart?s entry into Cana da, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Puerto Rico, China, Germany, South Korea, and Great Britain had been accomplished by acquiring existing general merchandise or supermarket chains.Wal-Mart?s international stra te gy was to “remain local” in terms of the goods it merchandise, its use of local suppliers where feasible, and in some of the ways it operated.4.What?s Wal-Mart?s scientific method?Wal-Mart's leading efficient information system highly respected industry. With its own commercial satellites, Wal-Mart and easily achieve a global networked information systems. Through this network, more than 4,000 stores worldwide available inventory within an hour of each commodity, shelves, sales of all inventory again. Internal and external information systems so that Wal-Mart can be in close contact with suppliers of goods exchanged daily sales, transportation and ordering information, to achieve store sales, ordering and delivery to keep pace.5.Can Wal-Mart improve salary system, management and HR human resource?The answer is affirmative. Wal-Mart has weak competitiveness in these aspects.a)Creating a work environment that enhances the quality of life for employees.b)Wal-Mart can use its IT advantaged to improve management and HR human resource to make closely connection between each store.c)Building a workforce that is diverse with respect to gender, race, national originand other aspects that different people bring to the workplace.6.How to care about protecting the environment and saving energy?a)Wal-Mart has a large number of employees; it can use these employees topromote environmental knowledge.b)Wal-Mart Improves packaging technology, not only can reduce costs, but also toprotect the environment.c)Because too many Wal-Mart stores in around the world,Wal-Mart's can use solarenergy, wind energy and waste oil for heating and cooling.7.Whether should Wal-Mart change its expansion strategy?Answer: In my opinion, the Wal-Mart should slow down its expansion pace. Reasons are as follows:a)The Wal-Mart should ensure the company operates honorably and ethically. InDecember 2005, Wal-Mart transported the materials from stores in California via a return center in Las Vegas before dumping them at a disposal site. This action is unethical.b)The Wal-Mart should conserving resources and sustaining the environment.Although the Wal-Mart has played out lots of environment-friendly policies but they do not put them into practice entirely.c)The Wal-Mart should pay more attention to well-being of employees rather thanexpand blindly. Recent years, the number of workers? complaints had grown.8.What is Wal-Mart?s Price and Promotion strategy?a)Short-term pricing strategies:Loss leader pricing modelBuy more gifts and related purchaseIntegration programs and member ship programsLong-term pricing strategy:Low-cost strategyBe good at set prices-ending pricing strategiesb)Promotion StrategyPR promotions -Use public relations to communicate with the public, establish a good corporate image and reputation Advertising - Compared with the sales promotion, personal selling, and other marketing tools such as public information, advertising and promotion with its unique position in the enterprise market marketing.Personal selling - Promotional staff through direct contact with customers, allowing consumers to understand the company's products, the establishment of the target audience better image of the enterprise products.。

法律英语词汇集锦

法律英语词汇集锦

法律英语词汇集锦商法总论商人法law merchant商法commercial law mercantile Law Business Law禁反言estoppel商事关系commercial relation主观主义标准standard of subjectivism客观主义标准standard of objectivism商事法律关系Legal commercial relation商人人格关系commercial personality relation商事营业关系commercial business relation新商人主义标准Standard of neo- merchant creed民商立法体制civil and commercial legislative system民商分立体制separation system of civil and commercial codes 民商合一体combination system of civil and commercial codes 分合折衷体制eclecticism legislative system主观意义的企业business客观意义的企业enterprise商主体merchant commercial person商行为commercial action商事代理commercial agent商业名称trade name行纪人broker公司法公司corporation company合伙partnership合股公司joint-stock company特许公司chartered corporation注册公司registered corporation法定公司statutory corporation无限公司unlimited corporation有限责任公司limited corporation股份有限公司limited by shares母公司parent corporation子公司susbsidiaries上市公司quoted corporation公司集团groups保证公司limited by guarantee慈善公司charitable corporation控股公司holding corporation; holding company公开公司publicly held corporation闭锁公司closely held corporation公公司a pub1ic company私公司a private company一人公司one-man company公司治理corporation governance公司人格corporation personality契约束nexus of contract公司法人格否认Disregard of Corporate Personality刺破公司面纱Piercing the Corporate Veil揭开公司面纱,Lifting the veil of the Corporation普通合伙general partnership有限合伙Limited partnerships合伙人partner有限责任limited liability公司章程articles of association注册证书certificate of incorporation articles of incorporation 发起人的受托义务Promoter’s fiduciary obligation认购协议subscription agreement既成事实公司de facto corporation法律上的公司de jure corporation公司设立瑕疵defective incorporation受托人义务fiduciary obligation结论性证据conclusive evidengce股份share股息dividends关联第三方connected third parties出资(投资)invest股东shareholder小股东minority shareholder单个股东individual shareholder消极股东passive shareholder积极股东active shareholder刺穿公司面纱pierce the corporate veil揭开公司面纱lifting the company veil逆向合并reverse merger收购公司acquiring company正向合并forward merger股权收购share acquisition股权收购share acquisition收购公司acquiring company收购目标公司target company资产收购asset acquisition公司责任liability of corporationmechanics of incorporating公司结构(组织)Corporation constructure董事director高级职员Officer股东权Powers of shareholder选任elect解任remove年会(常会)annual meeting兼并merger解散dissolution自愿解散voluntary dissolution强制解散法院解散judicial dissolution清算liquidation wind up董事会board of directors累计投票权cumulative voting right任期term董事的延期holdover director董事的解除removal of director董事会会议directors’meeting公告notice法定人数quorum少数lower number绝对多数super majority自己表决present at vote多数higher numberunanimous written consentobjection by director委员会committee细则bylaw董事长president公司秘书secretary股东诉讼shareholders actionbreaking quorum股东的信息获取权shareholders’informational right股东的帐簿与记录检查权shareholders’inspection of books and records 公司融资corporation finance财务报告financial report损益表income statement资产负债表balance sheet年度报告annual report季度报告quarterly report掺水股票watered stocktrust fund theory许可authorization发起人promoter营业执照trade charter票面价值par valuemisrepresentation theory优先购买权pre-emptive right库藏股treasury shares受托责任fiduciary dutypublic offerings of securities有价证券security权益证券equity security债务证券debt security债券bondfiling of registration statement普通股common stock优先股preferred stock资本capital授权且己发行资本authorized and issued Capital授权资本(名义资本)authorized capital、nominal capital 己发行资本issued capital已缴资本paid-up capital待缴资本uncalled capital催缴股本called-up capital保留资本reserve capital股权资本equity capital借贷资本loan capital声明股本stated capital票面价值par value,缩写为PV无票面价值no par value 缩写NPV法定资本制legal capital system授权资本制system authorized Capital转投资reinvestment资本确定原则prinzipdes festen grund kapitals资本维持原则principle of maintenance of capital资本不变原则Prinzipder Bestandingkedes Grund kapitals 重组re-classified股票再分割sub-divide注销cancel未发行的股份注册资本the registered capital分配distribution公司登记官the Registrar合并股份consolidate分割股份divide库存股treasure stock减资决议a resolution for reducing share capital红利股bonus shares雇员持股制度an employees’share system设立报告incorporators'report资本不足inadequate Capitalization最低资本额制度grundsatz des mindestgrund kapitals商业登记官the commercial Register授权资本额the amount of the authorized capital创立主义konstruktionsprinzip、Incorporation净资产net assets、net worth资本盈余paid-in surplus缴付盈余paid-in surplus减资盈余reduction surplus泡沫法案The bubble act合股公司法The joint-stock companiesAct泡沫废止法The Bubble Act Repeal Act代理理论Principal-agent Theory契约的集合nexus of contracts越权行为ultra vires act特许公司中chartered corporation优先债权人senior creditor次位债权subordinated creditor公司治理corporate governance股东之公平对待the equitable treatment of shareholders股东之权利the rights of shareholders信息揭露及透明性disclosure and transparency董事会的责任the responsibilities of the board股权代理人proxy监事会aufsichtsrat , supervisor board董事与公司间之交易self-dealing动机不纯之公司行为corporate action with mixed motives挪用公司或股东财产the taking of corporate or shareholder property 代表诉讼derivative suit少数股东权derivative action董事义务与责任shareholder' right and liability买回repurchase交叉持股cross ownership重整corporate reorganization股东会shareholder meeting董事会board of directors独立董事Independent Director内部董事inside director公司经理人officer外部监察人outside supervisor执行委员会executive committee监察委员会audit committee报酬委员会remuneration committee提名委员会nominating committee经营判断原则The Business Judgment Rule关系人交易conflict of interest股份收买请求权appraisal right资本不足under capitalization未遵守公司形式failure to follow corporate formalities公司财务报表、功能、或人员之重叠overlap of corporate recordsfunction or personnel资产混淆commingling of assets股东之支配能力shareholder domination不实陈述misrepresentation)诈欺fraud具有支配权之股东dominant shareholder公司机会corporate opportunity无表决权股non-voting share多数表决权股multiple-voting share表决权信托voting trust认股选择权制度stock option新股认购权warrant章程(组织)大纲英国称为memorandum of association 和articles of association,而在美国则被称为articles和bylaws。

Financial distress, corporate control

Financial distress, corporate control

Financial distress,corporate control,and management turnover∗—A German panel analysis—Philipp Jostarndt†Munich School of Management,andSa¨ıd Business SchoolAugust2006AbstractIn this study we empirically investigate the effect offinancial distress on cor-porate ownership and control.Our analysis is based on a panel of267Germanfirms that suffered from repeated interest coverage shortfalls and steep share pricedeclines between1996and2004.We track eachfirm’s development over the dis-tress cycle with particular attention on corporate ownership,restructuring,andmanagement turnover.Wefind a significant decrease in ownership concentration.Private investors,typically the bulwark in corporate ownership structures in Ger-many,gradually relinquish their dominating role and thereby cease to be an effectivesource of managerial control.By contrast,ownership representation by banks andoutside investors almost doubles.Shareholdings by managers and directors alsosubstantially increase but have no effect on managerial tenure.Forced manage-ment turnover,while clearly exceeding conventional levels of turnover in Germany,is mostly initiated by outside investors and banks and often occurs subsequent todebt restructurings,block investments,and takeovers.Collectively,the results sug-gests thatfinancial distress in Germany provokes substantial shifts from internal toexternal mechanisms of corporate control.Keywords:Corporate control,financial distress,restructuringJEL Classification:G32,G33∗I would like to thank Dietmar Harhoff,Christoph Kaserer,Colin Mayer,Bernd Rudolph,Oren Susman,and Felix Treptow for their detailed and thoughtful comments.Part of this work was written while I was visiting scholar at the Sa¨ıd Business School,University of Oxford.This paper also benefited from conference and doctoral seminar presentations at the2006Annual Conference on Corporate Strategy (ACCS),Berlin,the2006FMA European Conference,Stockholm,the2006EFA Z¨u rich Meeting,the University of Munich,the Technical University of Munich,and the University of Oxford.Part of this research was done while I was visiting scholar at the University of Oxford.Research and Financial support by the German Academic Exchange Service(DAAD Stipend D/05/47437)is gratefully acknowledged.†Philipp Jostarndt,Institute of Capital Market Research and Finance,University of Munich,Schack-strasse4,D-80539Muenchen.Email:philippj@lmu.deFinancial distress,corporate control,and management turnover:A German panel analysisAbstract:In this study we empirically investigate the effect offinancial distress on corporate own-ership and control.Our analysis is based on a panel of267Germanfirms that suffered from repeated interest coverage shortfalls and steep share price declines between1996and 2004.We track eachfirm’s development over the distress cycle with particular attention on corporate ownership,restructuring,and management turnover.Wefind a significant decrease in ownership concentration.Private investors,typically the bulwark in corpo-rate ownership structures in Germany,gradually relinquish their dominating role and thereby cease to be an effective source of managerial control.By contrast,ownership representation by banks and outside investors almost doubles.Shareholdings by man-agers and directors also substantially increase but have no effect on managerial tenure. Forced management turnover,while clearly exceeding conventional levels of turnover in Germany,is mostly initiated by outside investors and banks and often occurs subsequent to debt restructurings,block investments,and takeovers.Collectively,the results suggests thatfinancial distress in Germany provokes substantial shifts from internal to external mechanisms of corporate control.Keywords:Corporate control,financial distress,restructuringJEL Classification:G32,G331IntroductionAccording to corporatefinancial theory,the states offinancial distress,default,and bankruptcy present a fundamental stage in the life-cycle of corporations that provokes substantial changes in the ownership offirms’residual claims and the allocation of rights to manage corporate resources[e.g.Jensen(1988),Wruck(1990)].However,empirical results on how precisely these changes evolve have remained sparse and inconclusive.1For example,neoclassical models onfinancial distress typically suggest that default engenders a wholesale transfer of control to thefirm’s lenders who can costlessly restructure their claims to maximizefirm value[e.g.Haugen and Senbet(1978)].Yet the actual role of creditors in the restructuring offinancially distressedfirms has not been exhaustively scrutinized.Similarly,whilefinancial theory traditionally proposes that managers per-sonally suffer when theirfirms default or go bankrupt[e.g.Ross(1977)],there exists little evidence on what forces actually discipline managers infinancially distressedfirms. Finally,we currently know little about the intricate causes and consequences of control transfers infirms at the cusp of bankruptcy.In this study we seek to address these and related issues.In applying panel data methodology we analyze the impact of sustainedfinancial distress on corporate ownership and management turnover as well as the interaction between these two.A focus is set on the relative weight and effectiveness of internal and external monitoring mechanisms as well as monitoring by bank-lenders.Thereby,we account for the theoretic postulate that the relative effectiveness of alternative ownership and governance structures is mirrored by their ability to replace poorly performing managers[e.g.Fama and Jensen(1983), Franks and Mayer(2001)].One crucial aspect of our study is the explicit consideration of the particularities of German ownership structures,which were traditionally dominated by large family investors and proxy-vote representation by powerful house-banks,but have undergone substantial change in recent years[Gorton and Schmid(2000),K¨o ke(2002)]. Our study thus aims at providing genuine insights into the anatomy of distress in German corporations and seeks to complement as well as challenge previous evidence that is almost exclusively restricted to the anglo-saxon domain.Our analysis is based on a sample of267German corporations that experienced back-to-back interest coverage shortfalls and steep share price declines between1996and2002. 1Most notable previous studies on corporatefinancial distress include Franks and Torous(1989)on reorganization of bankruptfirms under Chapter11,Gilson(1989)on private costs of distress,Gilson (1990)on ownership and board composition offirms in default or bankruptcy,Gilson,John,and Lang(1990)on debt restructuring,and Gilson and Vetsuypens(1993)on CEO compensation.Wruck (1990)and Senbet and Seward(1995)provide surveys of the theoretic as well as empirical strands of literature.This period coincides with the youngest economic crisis and the subsequent convalescence thereof and thus offers the analysis of a sample that was hitherto not obtainable.Our research design follows prior work by Gilson(1990)and Asquith et al.(1990)in that we (i)create a stratified sample offirms that meet a pre-determined distress-criterion at some time during the sampling interval and(ii)track eachfirm’s development over the distress cycle.Firms exit the sample upon bankruptcy orfinancial recovery.Data coverage is censored at the year2004.Our analysis follows a three-step approach.First,we examine the impact offinancial distress on corporate ownership.Wefind that ownership structures undergo substantial changes.Median ownership concentration,measured by a Herfindahl index,significantly declines from26%in year-1to16%in year+4relative to the onset offinancial distress. The decline in ownership concentration is mostly attributable to a systematic retreat of individual and family investors,traditionally the bulwark in corporate ownership struc-tures in Germany.Conversely,ownership representation by banks andfinancial investors almost doubles over the same interval,although both groups of investors only acquire com-paratively small stakes.Ownership by corporate managers,i.e.executives and directors, also significantly increases over the distress interval.Second,we analyze how turnover of key-executives is affected by persisting distress. Wefind that average turnover rates in our sample are almost twice as high as conventional levels of turnover in Germany.Only14%of chief executives and22%of chief directors who hold respective seats at the onset offinancial difficulties are still in office at year+4 in distress time.Third,we perform panel data regressions to investigate the relation between(changes in)corporate ownership and management turnover.After controlling for performance, wefind that turnover is significantly affected by ownership composition and changes therein.For one,increasing insider ownership cannot insulate management from disci-plinary turnover.Also,turnover is not affected by overall ownership concentration or the size of holdings by private investors.Instead,turnover is mostly triggered byfirm outsiders,especially banks andfinancial investors who acquire distressed claims through block investments and takeovers.Banks also replace managers upon defaults and in debt restructurings.Thus,managerial tenure underfinancial distress is more affected by actual shifts in ownership and control rather than by absolute levels of ownership.The results are robust to alternative ownership specifications and definitions of management turnover and are not inflicted by panel attrition problems.Collectively,our results offer strong support for the hypothesis thatfinancial distress provokes a shift from internal to external mechanisms of corporate control.One ancillarycontribution of our study is the revealing that German corporations seem to heavily engage in restructuring prior to actual bankruptcy.While roughly one-third of our sampledfirms ultimately go bankrupt,formal proceedings appear to be protracted as long as possible. This sharply contrasts to previous evidence on distressed U.S.firms who tend to enter formal proceedings under Chapter11prematurely and on their own free will and thus perform a great deal of restructuring under court supervision[Franks and Torous(1989)].2 This national peculiarity makes German data particularly interesting for studying the impact offinancial distress because observed restructuring measures are not distorted by legal or regulatory influence but remain a matter of choice.One principle objection to the generality of our results could be made.Since our sampling period embraces the rise and fall of the technology hype towards the end of the last decade it is not clear ex ante if and how this affects our results.To address this concern,our analyses control for industry and market segment affiliation as well as several time-windows within our sampling period.The results suggest that the allegedly distorting influences are statistically as well as economically small.However,since we provide thefirst empirical study covering this epoch it is yet to be determined whether the obtained evidence is specific to our sample.This study is structured as follows.Section2surveys the relevant theoretic literature as well as related empirical studies and derives testable propositions.Section3provides the details of the sample selection,describes the data,and discusses key measurement issues.The empirical results,their interpretation and robustness checks are contained in section4.Section5concludes with a summary of the study’s mainfindings and a brief plimentary empirical results are contained in the appendix.2Theory and propositions2.1Theory on distress,ownership,and management turnoverFinancial distress may affect corporate control in various ways.Yet there exists no single theoretic framework modelling this relationship.Therefore,our derivation of testable hypotheses must rely on an array of in part conflicting theoretic contributions,related empirical studies as well as anecdotal evidence.In this respect the following analysis will deliberately retain some explorative traits.2Most likely this reflects the more debtor-friendly bankruptcy legislation in the U.S.Franks,Nyborg, and Torous(1996)provide a review of that issue.2.1.1Financial distress and the separation of ownership and controlThe fundamental principle underlying the separation of ownership and control in mod-ern corporations is that managers who act as agents on behalf of thefirm’s claimholders and have no or limitedfinancial interest in thefirm can be made accountable for poor performance.Accountability of managers and thus the required return on investment to financial claimholders in ensured by mechanisms of corporate governance[Shleifer and Vishny(1997)].Perhaps the most apparent indication for the effectiveness of these mech-anisms is the outright replacement of unsuccessful executives.3While managers’actual contribution tofirm value is not directly observable,(adjusted)measures forfirm perfor-mance are usually applied as proxies.The so-postulated inverse relation between stock price or operating performance and management turnover has been confirmed in several previous empirical studies.4Aside from low profits and poor stock returns,several types of corporatefinance and investment decisions seem to be particularly influenced by the personal costs that man-agers incur when theirfirms facefinancial nemesis such as default and bankruptcy.For example,to avoid the negative personal consequences of distress managers might choose less risky(and rewarding)investment projects[Smith and Stulz(1985)]or employ below optimum levels of leverage in thefirm’s capital structure[Ross(1977)].While corpo-rate andfinancial performance are strongly interrelated,empirical evidence by Gilson (1989)suggests thatfinancial distress independently engenders higher rates of manage-ment turnover.For a sample of poorly performingfirms Gilsonfinds that turnover infirms that are alsofinancially distressed exceeds turnover in non-distressed entities almost by a factor of three.Similarly,Franks et al.(2001)argue thatfinancial distress is the only focused and significant force in disciplining poor management.Perhaps surprisingly,the question of who stands behind the disciplining of managers in distressedfirms has so far remained almost entirely disregarded.This is an interesting void tofill.Underfinancial distress,conflicts of interest are pronounced as various classes of claimants dispute about the distribution of thefirm’s waning resources.In such a setting,the allocation of rights to appoint or replace key executives directly reflects the effects of distress on the balance of power within the corporation.In the following we restrict our attention to three non-mutually exclusive sources of corporate control.We distinguish internal monitoring by blockholders and the board of 3Gilson(1989)shows that non-routine turnovers have a sustainably bad influence on the personal wealth of individuals as well as their value on the market for managers.4References include Warner,Watts,and Wruck(1988),Weisbach(1988),and Gibbons and Murphy (1990)for the U.S.,Franks,Mayer,and Renneboog(2001)for the U.K.as well as Te Wildt(1996) and Jostarndt et al.(2005)for Germany.directors,external monitoring by the market for corporate control,and monitoring by creditors.2.1.2Ownership structure and internal monitoringIn Germany,the governance of corporations is organized in a two-tier system.The first tier is the supervisory board(i.e.the board of directors),which appoints the management-executive board,nominates a chief executive,determines managerial com-pensation schemes,and approves the annual accounts as well as thefirm’s long term strategy.Unlike in the anglo-saxon domain,the two tiers in Germany are strictly sep-arated in that no member of the management board simultaneously holds a seat in the supervisory board.5The supervisory board consists of employee and owner representa-tives and is appointed by the general shareholder assembly.Thus,blockholders of voting stock typically exert a strong influence on the board composition and,along with it,on management.Whether or not this influence is appreciable is ambiguous from a theo-retic point of view.In principle,concentrated ownership bears the advantage that large shareholders have the power and the incentive to effectively monitor management and thus overcome the free-riding problem associated with dispersed ownership[Shleifer and Vishny(1986)].On the other hand,powerful blockholders,especially majority owners, may also use their influence to reap private benefits at the expense of minority owners [Bebchuk(1999),Barclay and Holderness(1989)].Concerning the disciplining of poor management,prior empirical studies generally provide evidence in favor of concentrated ownership.For example,Denis,Denis,and Sarin(1997)find a positive relation between ownership concentration and performance related management turnover.6A second dimension of internal monitoring pertains to the type of blockholder.In Ger-many the most powerful owners in listed corporations are private investors(families and individuals)and non-financial corporates[e.g.Gorton and Schmid(2000),K¨o ke(2001)]. Economic theory suggests that monitoring by private blockholders may be more effective because they present ownership at the ultimate level and thus have better incentives to obey theirfiduciary duties.Corporate shareholders,by contrast,are fraught with addi-tional agency conflicts and may therefore be weak monitors[Von Thadden(1990)].In Germany,this discrepancy is pronounced due the traditionally intensive ties between pri-vate shareholders and thefirms they own[e.g.Ehrhardt and Nowak(2003)].For this reason,private investors in Germany are typically assigned the attribute of active“inside”5A more detailed comparison of both governance systems is provided by Edwards and Fischer(1994) and Rudolph(2003).6Similarly Jostarndt,Rudolph,and Thierauf(2005).By contrast,Franks and Mayer(2001)find no relation between ownership concentration and turnover.blockholders[Gray(1998)].7Anecdotal evidence consistent with the argument of more effective monitoring by private investors is provided by Wenger and Kaserer(1998).They find that management errors in German corporations are more likely to be corrected if the supervisory board is dominated by private rather than by corporate blockholders.The effect offinancial distress on blockholder monitoring is somewhat ambiguous.On the one hand,distress and corporate crises increase the need for effective monitoring.Provided that inside blockholders are better informed and represent better monitors,economic the-ory may assert that distress engenders a consolidation of voting stock in the hands of few private blockholders[Gilson(1990)].If,on the other hand,private investors are less diversified and more wealth constrained than,say,institutional investors they may be more hesitant to increase their ownership stakes in distressed targets.Afinal dimension of internal monitoring considered in this study concerns the incentive-based compensation for managers and directors in the form of stock ownership.According to Jensen and Meckling(1976)and Baker,Jensen,and Murphy(1988),the incentive-related virtues of compensating managers and directors withfirm’s stock are greatest when thefirm is distressed.However,the expected impact of stock-based compensation of both groups on management turnover should be directly opposed.We should expect direct holdings by management-executives to reduce irregular turnover.In part,this stems from the fact that managers have better entrenchment possibilities if they hold voting stock in thefirm and thus are more insulated from disciplinary board decisions [Denis,Denis,and Sarin(1997)].In part,however,this is also due to the disciplining effect of granting poor management undervalued stock(other than options),which may serve as substitute to outright replacement.Increasing ownership by directors,in turn, should provoke higher rates of performance related turnover if ownership participation of directors induces them to monitor management more effectively.Throughout this text we will refer to this interaction of ownership concentration, holdings by private investors,and holdings by corporate managers and directors as internal monitoring hypothesis.2.1.3External monitoring and the market for corporate controlWhile monitoring by internal mechanisms largely refers to the scale and nature of own-ership in absolute terms,external monitoring is essentially based on changes in owner-ship involving outside investors[Manne(1965)].Earlier studies on corporate governance 7Ownership representation by private investors in Germany is particularly strong for youngerfirms formerly listed on’Neuer Markt’,in which the founding entrepreneurs and/or family descendants take active roles on thefirm’s supervisory board.in Germany have simplistically assumed ownership structures to be constant over time. However,K¨o ke(2002)shows that ownership structures in fact exhibit considerable vari-ation.Changes in ownership and control may result from two sources.First,outside investors may accumulate stakes through block trades of existing shares following volun-tary disposals of existing owners.Alternatively,new shares may be issued through private or public placements designed to concentrate voting power in new hands thus deliberately diluting holdings of existing owners.8Outside investors may be attracted byfinancial distress for several reasons.First, outside investors may seek to actively contribute to the turnaround process if they dispose of the relevant industry and management experience,which is essential to the rescue of an ailing target.In some cases,this experience may well offset the informational advantage typically enjoyed by inside blockholders such as private investors.Thus,the increased monitoring need prevalent during poor performance may be better executed by outsiders, especially corporates andfinancialfirms.Evidence consistent with this view is obtained by Barclay and Holderness(1991)whofind that engagements of new outside blockholders are associated with abnormal announcement returns of about15%.Alternatively,investors could seek a passive investment strategy if they believe that securities are underpriced or that larger blocks of stock engender a more generous consideration under a likely bankruptcy or debt restructuring plan[Gilson(1990)].Economic theory suggests that changes in ownership and control present bad news for incumbent managers.This follows from considerations that takeovers are most likely to be disciplinary when performance is poor and that different management teams com-pete with each other on the market for managerial talent[Scharfstein(1988),Jensen and Ruback(1983)].The empirical evidence for the U.S.offers strong support for the hypoth-esis that ownership changes,takeovers,and performance related executive replacements are interrelated[Mikkelson and Partch(1997),Denis and Sarin(1999)].While hostile takeovers have remained a rarity in Germany,disciplining ownership changes in the form of minority block trades occur frequently[Jenksinon and Ljungqvist(2001),K¨o ke(2002)]. However,managerial disciplining by outsiders is not restricted to over-the-counter pur-chases of existing share blocks but may also occur when distressedfirms tap the equity market in order to raise new funds[Franks et al.(2001)].Underfinancial distress,equity offerings are likely to occur as a result of creditor pressure since existing owners have little incentive to issue new stock voluntarily[Gertner and Scharfstein(1991)].For example, the recent equity offering by KarstadtQuelle AG was announced as part of a complex re-8Of course,this cannot be completed against the will of existing owners.§186of the German Companies Act grants existing owners subscription rights to any new issues of stock.We will address this issue further below.financing package imposed by the banks and almost collapsed under the heavy appeal by thefirm’s shareholders.9If subscription rights for the new issue are excluded or existing shareholders refuse to go along,this offers an opportunity for new investors to acquire new blocks of shares,often at a steep discount(in the case of KarstadtQuelle40%).In the following,the postulated relation betweenfinancial distress,monitoring by outside blockholders and management turnover is labelled external monitoring hypothesis.2.1.4Financial distress and bank monitoringUnderfinancial distress a third source of managerial control emanates from thefirm’s creditors.Asfirm performance deteriorates equity claims decline in value and contrac-tual claims increasingly participate in thefirm’s underlying business risk.Thus,in the state of crisis,creditors may have incentives to monitor management more actively than shareholders[Jensen(1989)].In the absence of exhaustive bondfinancing,this monitor-ing is mostly attributable to corporate banks,the most prevalent group of lenders in the German domain.According to Gilson(1990),creditors’contribution to corporate control infinancially distressedfirms essentially manifests in two ways,(i)explicit ownership of voting stock and(ii)restrictive covenants enforced through debt restructurings.Bank ownership of voting stock in German corporations is a common phenomenon[e.g.Gorton and Schmid (2000)].Moreover,banks often dispose of considerable proxy-votes that they execute on behalf of individual shareholders.Holdings of distressed equity and swaps of debt into equity,however,are restrictively regulated.For example,according to German legislation prior to1998,banks who take equity in distressedfirms deliberately subordinate their remaining debt claims in thefirm and thus always fare worse than without the swap in case the restructuring attempt does ultimately fail(Concept of Equitable Subordination, or Eigenkapitalersatzregeln).After the enforcement of the German Capital Raising Facili-tation Act(KapAEG)the Concept of Equitable Subordination is eased for debt-to-equity swaps,however,banks still face the risk of a subsequent payment obligation if the value of the equity securities received exceeds that of the debt securities given(Differenzhaftung). Moreover,the incentive to exchange debt into equity is reduced due to unfavorable taxa-tion rules imposed on the debtor.10Nevertheless,banks frequently accept residual claims to resuscitate a distressed debtor,albeit this engagement,at most times,is temporarily and small in size.For example,Westdeutsche Landesbank acquired a minority stake in 9See“KarstadtQuelle einigt sich mit Aktion¨a ren”,in:B¨o rsen-Zeitung,26November2004.10See Finsterer(1999),pp.188-191,and Br¨u chner(1998),pp.156-176for a detailed analysis of these issues.Gildemeister AG in an out-of-court workout in1994and divested the stake upon the firm’s return to sustained profitability in2005.11Banks may also respond to their client’sfinancial distress by claiming(additional)seats in thefirm’s supervisory board,even without disposing of considerable ownership.While it is intricate to exhaustively identify bank affiliation of all board members especially for smallfirms,anecdotal evidence suggests that board representation by senior bankers fortifies in response to distress.For example,Dieter Rampl of HypoVereinsbank took a seat in the supervisory board of Elexis AG in2000,and Alfred Lehner of Bayern Landesbank joined the supervisory board of Walter Bau AG in2001.At that time,both firms experienced severefinancial distress.Most recently,Morgan Stanley announced to delegate a senior banker to head the supervisory board of Borussia Dortmund in order to monitor thefirm’s recapitalization pursuits.12Finally,and perhaps most effectively,banks may influence corporate control through debt restructurings even without explicit ownership or board representation.When a firm defaults on its debt or is likely to default,its pursuit to avoid bankruptcy typically depends on the mercy of its most powerful lenders.By this means,banks gain consider-able control rights and may change the new debt terms in their favor.Consistent with this argument,Gilson(1990)reports that in contrast to ordinary loan agreements rene-gotiated debt covenants often grant banks explicit veto power over capital expenditures, divestitures,or changes in management.However,banks may also make debt concessions contingent on the direct replacement of senior executives.For example,the resignation of KarstadtQuelle’s CEO,Christoph Achenbach,subsequent to thefirm’s recapitalization in2004,was provoked by the leading creditor banks.13In the following,the assertion thatfinancial distress causes banks to get more involved in corporate control and thereby impose a disciplinary effect on incumbent management is referred to as bank monitoring hypothesis.11See“WestLB verabschiedet sich von Gildemeister”,in:Handelsblatt,07September2005.12See“Borussia Dortmund spricht mit Banken¨u ber eine Umschuldung”,in:Handelsblatt,24October 2005.13See“Gl¨a ubigerbanken wollen Vorst¨a nde feuern”,in:Spiegel-online,25November2004.。

Tunneling through intercorporate loans-The China experience

Tunneling through intercorporate loans-The China experience

Tunneling through intercorporate loans:The China experience$Guohua Jiang a,Charles M.C.Lee b,Ã,Heng Yue aa Guanghua School of Management,Peking University,Beijing100871,Chinab Graduate School of Business,518Memorial Way,Stanford University,Stanford,CA94305-5015,USAa r t i c l e i n f oArticle history:Received10December2008Received in revised form5November2009Accepted9November2009Available online10May2010JEL classifications:G15G38K22a b s t r a c tThis study investigates a particularly brazen form of corporate abuse,in whichcontrolling shareholders use intercorporate loans to siphon billions of RMB fromhundreds of Chinese listed companies during the1996–2006period.We document thenature and extent of these transactions,evaluate their economic consequences,examine factors that affect their cross-sectional severity,and report on the mitigatingroles of auditors,institutional investors,and regulators.Collectively,ourfindings shedlight on the severity of the minority shareholder expropriation problem in China,as wellas the relative efficacy of various legal and extra-legal governance mechanisms in thatcountry.&2010Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.1.IntroductionTraditionally,the focus of the agency literature in theU.S.has been on the conflict betweenfirm managers and adiffused group of shareholders(e.g.,Berle and Means,1932;Jensen and Meckling,1976).However,more recentstudies show that well-dispersed ownership is relativelyrare outside of the U.S.and Japan,and that largeblockholders control most European and Asian compa-nies.1In this broader setting,the central agency problemis the risk of controlling shareholder expropriation ofminority investors,a phenomenon commonly referred toas‘‘self-dealing’’(Djankov,La Porta,Lopez-de-Silanes,andShleifer,2008)or‘‘tunneling’’(Johnson,La Porta,Shleifer,and Lopez-de-Silanes,2000).Although anecdotes of tunneling abound,the exactnature and scope of these activities are difficult to pindown.These difficulties stem from the many varied,andoften subtle,ways that controlling shareholders canextract private benefits from the companies they run.2Perhaps because of these problems,economists usuallymeasure the impact of tunneling indirectly,eitherthrough the price paid for corporate control,or fromchanges infirms’market valuation around specificContents lists available at ScienceDirectjournal homepage:/locate/jfecJournal of Financial Economics0304-405X/$-see front matter&2010Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jfineco.2010.05.002$An earlier version of this paper was titled:‘‘Tunneling in China:theremarkable case of intercorporate loans.’’We are grateful to Kangtao Yefor sharing his hand-collected data on controlling shareholder receivablebalances.We also thank seminar participants at BGI,Carnegie-MellonUniversity,City University of Hong Kong,Nanjing University,Penn StateAccounting Research Conference,Peking University,Santa Clara Uni-versity,Shanghai University of Finance and Economics,SouthwestUniversity of Finance and Economics,Stanford University,TsinghuaUniversity,U.C.Berkeley,U.C.Davis,and Xiamen University for helpfulcomments.This project is supported by the National Natural ScienceFoundation of China(approval numbers70532002and70972010).ÃCorresponding author.E-mail address:lee_charles@(C.M.C.Lee).1Studies that examine corporate ownership structure in Asia andEurope include:La Porta,Lopez-de-Silanes,and Shleifer(1999),Claessens,Djankov,and Lang(2000),Claessens,Djankov,Fan,and Lang(footnote continued)(2002),Faccio and Lang(2002),Faccio,Lang,and Young(2001),andJohnson,Boone,Breach,and Friedman(2000).2For example,prior studies have discussed such activities asadvantageous transfer pricing to parties related to the controllingshareholder,executive perquisites,excessive compensation,loan guar-antees,directed equity issuances,dividend policies,favorable lendingterms,and outright theft of corporate assets(see Shleifer and Vishny,1997;La Porta,Lopez-de-Silanes,and Shleifer,1999;Johnson,La Porta,Shleifer,and Lopez-de-Silanes,2000;Faccio,Lang,and Young,2001).Journal of Financial Economics98(2010)1–20events.3While these studies have clearly established the existence of tunneling,they offer fewer specifics on how it is conducted,and why certain governance mechanisms designed to curb the problem might fail to deliver.In this study,we investigate a particularly brazen form of tunneling that was widely practiced among Chinese firms during the1996–2006period.Specifically,we examine the use of intercorporate loans by controlling shareholders to siphon funds from publicly listed compa-nies.Intercorporate loans are a useful instrument for this purpose because they are traceable through public sources,and do not require a‘‘fair value’’test,such as would be needed in other asset transfers between related parties.By examining the origination and settlement of these loans,we can directly examine tunnelingflows to/from controlling blockholders and their surrogates.The Chinese stock market is well-suited for a study on tunneling for several reasons.First,by virtue of heritage and design,all Chinese listedfirms have a dominant/ controlling shareholder.Second,the trading of controlling shares in China is highly restricted,thus limiting the ownership benefits of price appreciation to the controller, and increasing her incentive to obtain benefits through other channels.Third,the legal system in China offers few options for minority shareholders to take private enforce-ment action against blockholder misconduct.Fourth, public enforcement,includingfines and prison terms for tunneling,has been hampered by the limited authority of security market regulators.For these reasons,modern day China is an environment highly conducive to tunneling behavior.Our empirical analyses proceed along two lines.First, we show the scope of the problem,and assess its cross-sectional determinants and economic consequences. Second,we analyze the efficacy of legal and extra-legal mechanisms(including auditors,market participants,and regulators)in addressing this particular form of insider abuse.Our results show that during1996–2006,tens of billions in RMB were siphoned from hundreds of Chinese firms by controlling shareholders.Typically reported as part of‘‘Other receivables’’(OREC),these loans are found in the balance sheets of a majority of Chinesefirms and collectively represent a large portion of their assets and market values.In our sample,OREC balances averaged 8.1%of total assets(5.4%of market capitalization,or15.9% of the value of total tradable shares).4Forfirms in the top decile,OREC averaged32%of total assets(21%of market capitalization,or60%of the value of total tradable shares).Using a hand-collected sample,we trace a substantial portion of these loans(between30%and40%of total OREC in the top three deciles)directly to controlling share-holders or their affiliates.5Unlike related lending by Mexican banks(La Porta,Lopez-de-Silanes,and Zamarripa, 2003),these loans were not made as part of the Chinese firms’normal course of business.Most of these loans did not accrue interest,and even when some interest was accrued,neither the interest nor the principal was typically ever paid back.6We show that ORECTA(other receivable scaled by total assets)balances are larger for smallfirms(SIZE),more leveredfirms(LEV),less profitablefirms(ROA),non-state-ownedfirms(STATE),andfirms registered in regions that are less economically developed(MARKETIZATION),sug-gesting that the private benefits of insider tunneling are more likely to outweigh the costs in thesefirms.Among firms controlled by the state owned enterprises(SOEs), tunneling is more severe for local-government controlled firms(Local)than forfirms controlled by the central-government(Central),suggesting that net incentives for tunneling are greater among local-government controlled SOEs.Finally,consistent with prior market-price-based studies(e.g.,Claessens,Djankov,Fan,and Lang,2002; Lemmon and Lins,2003),we show that the OREC problem is most severe when the blockholder’s controlling right (C)is much larger than her ownership right(O).That is,firms in which the controlling shareholder enjoys the lowest cash-flow ownership rights(i.e.,firms with large C/O ratios)also have the largest ORECTA balances.This result is robust after controlling for all the other determinants of tunneling.We also show significant negative economic conse-quences for the shareholders offirms with high ORECTA panies with large ORECTA balances exhibit worse future operating performance,both in terms of lower accounting rates-of-return and higher likelihood of enteringfinancial distress.After controlling for current ROA,wefind that the level of ORECTA is the single best predictor of next year’s ROA.In addition,we show that high-ORECTAfirms are far more likely to acquire ST (special treatment)status in the future.7Specifically,14% of the top decile ORECTAfirms attain ST status in2years, compared to an average of less than2%in the bottom two deciles offirms.Ancillary tests indicate that although profitability and tunneling severity are negatively corre-lated,the causality is mainly unidirectional(i.e.,sharp3Prior studies estimate tunneling from the premiums paid for controlling shares(Zingales,1994;Dyck and Zingales,2004;Nenova, 2003;and Atanasov,2005);or from the market reaction to related-party transactions(Bae,Kang,and Kim,2002;Baek,Kang,and Lee,2006)or earnings(Bertrand,Mehta,and Mullainathan,2002)within a commonly controlled business group;or from the relative price declines offirms with differing ownership structures during the Asian crisis(Lemmon and Lins,2003).4Tradable shares are the shares allowed to be traded on stock exchanges,and available to regular investors.On average,approximately 35%of all shares outstanding are tradable shares.5Thisfigure almost certainly understates the magnitude of the related-party portion of OREC,as many of the affiliates cannot be easily identified with the controlling entity.The problem is exacerbated by the pyramidal structure of Chinese listed companies,which can obscure related-party relationships(see Fan,Wong,and Zhang,2005).6Later,we describe in detail how the practice of tunneling through intercorporate loansfinally ended in December2006after a long series of government rules and directives(see Appendix C).7Market regulators assign ST status to anyfirm that has had two consecutive annual losses(or whose book value is negative).ST stocks are‘‘on probation’’and operate under various trading andfinancial restrictions.If they report one more annual loss,trading will be suspended;a fourth loss will result in delisting.Because Chinesefirms rarely go into actual bankruptcy,ST status can be regarded as a comparable measure offinancial distress.G.Jiang et al./Journal of Financial Economics98(2010)1–20 2increases in tunneling precede significant profitability declines,and not vice versa).Further tests indicate that market participants do not seem to fully anticipate these negative consequences.We find that the market uses a higher implied discount rate in valuing the earnings of high-ORECTAfirms,suggesting a general awareness of the problem.However,we alsofind that high-ORECTAfirms earn lower risk-adjusted returns in the subsequent12months,indicating that the negative implications of these loans are not fully incorporated into prices.A hedge portfolio that sells the top-decile ORECTA firms and buys the bottom decile earns over1%per month over the next12months.This result is robust to the inclusion of a variety of risk controls.We also provide some evidence on why various legal and extra-legal governance mechanisms might have been inadequate in containing this practice.First,we show that institutional ownership is a relatively small part of the Chinese market landscape,a fact that likely contributes to the persistence of the mispricing.The average ownership by mutual funds in our sample is only 1.33%of total shares outstanding(2.80%of tradable shares).As of the end of2004,ownership by all institutional investors, including mutual funds,social security funds,and pension funds,is only3.75%(8.26%of tradable shares).Interest-ingly,wefind that institutional ownership is highest among low-ORECTAfirms,suggesting these institutions tend to avoid owning high-ORECTAfirms.Evidently these investors do take ORECTA balances into account when selecting stocks,but their collective effect on pricing is limited.8Second,we examine the mitigating role of auditors. Allen,Qian,and Qian(2005)suggest that a weak auditing profession is at least partially to blame for the relatively sluggish growth of China’s listed sector.Wefind,however, that auditors in China play an active monitoring role. Firms with high-OREC balances are far more likely to receive a qualified opinion—in fact a full45%of thefirms in the highest ORECTA decile received an unclean opinion in the reporting year.Unfortunately,firms receiving a qualified opinion in1year exhibit no tendency to reduce their OREC balance in the following year.This evidence is consistent with the view that when private enforcement channels are weak or unavailable,disclosure alone is not enough to curb insider abuse.9Finally,we report on the constraints that market regulators in China operate under.We show that a string of security regulations issued between2001and2006 (see Appendix C)was largely ignored,primarily because market regulators had no jurisdiction over the controlling entities(which themselves were typically unlisted).It took a joint statement by eight government ministries, threatening public disclosure and personal action against top management of the controlling entities,tofinally stop the abuse.This unusual show of political resolvefinally resulted in the repatriation of most of the remaining OREC balances—which,even as late as2006,amounted to close to50billion RMB,and involved over one-third of all listed firms.Overall,ourfindings provide a portrait of the nature and severity of the tunneling problem in China,and new insights on why existing legal and extra-legal governance mechanisms were inadequate to contain this practice.Our evidence shows that in certain settings,public disclosure alone is not enough,i.e.,when minority shareholders have no legal recourse and when security regulators have limited jurisdiction over the controlling entities,even an extremely transparent form of tunneling can persist for many years.Thesefindings have implications for the literature on the regulation of insider abuse (e.g.,Djankov,La Porta,Lopez-de-Silanes,and Shleifer, 2008;La Porta,Lopez-de-Silanes,and Shleifer,2006). Specifically,they argue for increased legal,rather than extra-legal,regulatory measures in curbing Chinese insider abuse.Looking ahead,we note that the tunneling problem in China has stubborn roots.Although this specific form of abuse has been eradicated,the incentives that gave rise to the tunneling are largely intact(in fact,recent reform has increased the C/O ratio of most Chinesefirms,potentially exacerbating the problem).Until these root tensions are more fully addressed,insider tunneling will pose an ongoing challenge to reform in China.In the meantime, we believe researchers interested in understanding managerial and investor behavior in China would do well to keep the tunneling perspective in mind.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section2provides a review of related research as well as background information on the Chinese stock market. Section3presents our empirical analysis,and Section4 concludes with a discussion of the implications of our findings.2.Literature review and institutional background2.1.Private benefits of corporate controlThe value of controlling rights over corporate resources has come to play a central role in modern thinking aboutfinance and corporate governance.Early theoretical work by Grossman and Hart(1988)has evolved into a substantial literature under the euphemis-tic label‘‘private benefits of control’’(Hart,1995;Zingales, 1994).In fact,the extensive literature on investor protection and its role in the development offinancial markets(e.g.,La Porta,Lopez-de-Silanes,and Shleifer, 2000)is focused on the problem of insider tunneling and its containment in international settings.A number of prior studies have estimated the magni-tude of these private benefits through the premiums paid for voting rights(Zingales,1994;Nenova,2003;Dyck and Zingales,2004;Atanasov,2005).The estimates from these studies range widely,but are often on the order of25%or more of the value offirms,particularly in countries with8Short-selling is not allowed in China,which further limits theability of informed investors to discipline the price of high-ORECTAfirms.9For good discussions on alternative approaches to the regulation oftunneling activities,see La Porta,Lopez-de-Silanes,and Shleifer,2006and Djankov,La Porta,Lopez-de-Silanes,and Shleifer(2008).G.Jiang et al./Journal of Financial Economics98(2010)1–203less developed capital markets.10Another approach is to infer tunneling by linking ownership structure to prices paid in related-party transactions,or changes infirm equity value under special settings.11Compared to prior studies,our approach has certain advantages and limitations.By using a direct measure of tunneling that is independent offirm value,we are able to gauge the prevalence of the phenomenon across all listed firms(not justfirms with particular ownership structures or within related business groups).We are also able to provide much more detail and color on how tunneling is actually accomplished,as well as conduct more detailed tests,including asset pricing tests,on the causes and consequences of tunneling.Finally,because our measure of tunneling is reported at regular intervals,we are able to evaluate the response of various parties(such as auditors, institutional investors,and market regulators),and thus, infer something about the efficacy of alternative govern-ance mechanisms.The main limitation of our approach is that we only examine one particular form of pared to the control premium literature,for example,which provides an estimate of the total maximum private benefits for control, our evidence provides a minimum direct measure of tunnel-ing.Our measure is more interpretable as clear evidence of tunneling,but the magnitude of the overall problem is almost certainly greater than our estimate.Therefore,while prior evidence establishes a‘‘ceiling’’for the total economic impact of tunneling,our evidence establishes a‘‘floor’’for Chinesefirms.Our point is that,even with this minimal estimate,the scale(and reach)of the tunneling problem in China is impressive,and merits further study.2.2.Salient features of the Chinese stock marketThe Chinese stock market is conducive to tunneling for several reasons.First,all Chinese listedfirms have a dominant shareholder.In the early1990s,under a‘‘partial privatization’’initiative,the Chinese government allowed state-owned enterprises(SOEs)to sell a minority portion of ownership to private investors.This led to the creation of China’s two stock exchanges:Shanghai(in1990)and Shenzhen(in1991).By the end of2004,the number of listed stocks reached1377with a total market capital of 3706billion RMB.Most of thesefirms are carve-outs or spin-offs from an existing state-owned enterprise(SOE), in which the original SOE retains a substantial blockhold-ing.Indeed,the Chinese government has been explicit in requiring that control of these listed companies not be relinquished.12Second,the trading of block shares is highly restricted. During our study period,common stocks in China were classified into two groups:tradable or non-tradable(also called negotiable vs.non-negotiable).13Shares owned by all levels of government,state agencies(such as uni-versities),and other legal entities,are non-tradable. The rest of the shares are sold to individual citizens and institutional investors,and are tradable.14As of February 2005,non-tradable shares accounted for63.51%of all outstanding stock.Approximately70%of all non-tradable shares were held by state-owned enterprises.Third,minority shareholders have few private chan-nels through which to take actions against insider misconduct.Courts in China have had a long tradition of protecting state interests and have little experience with private plaintiff-driven litigation(Allen,Qian,and Qian, 2005;MacNeil,2002).At the same time,Chinese listed firms face few external governance mechanisms(such as takeovers or other forms of investor activism)that might deter blockholder misconduct.Institutional ownership, particularly by mutual funds,is also low among Chinese firms,thus limiting the disciplining effect of these investors on share prices.In addition,as we illustrate later,the public enforcement mechanism in China is constrained by the limited authority of security market regulators.In sum,the confluence of:(1)highly concentrated ownership structures,(2)limited ownership benefit for blockholders from price appreciation,and(3)absence of legal/extra-legal mechanisms to curb blockholder abuse, have together created an environment in modern China that is highly conducive to tunneling.2.3.Other related studiesOur study is also related to recent studies that examine corporate governance and earnings management in China.10Zingales(1994)shows that in Italy private benefits of control are substantial and can easily exceed60%of the value of nonvoting equity. Nenova(2003)measures the value of corporate voting rights in18countries and shows that much of the variation can be explained by the legal environment,law enforcement,investor protection,takeover regulation,and corporate charter provisions.Dyck and Zingales(2004) estimate the private benefits of control across39countries andfind that higher private benefits of control are associated with less developed capital markets,more concentrated ownership,and more privately negotiated privatizations.Atanasov(2005)uses mass privatization auction data from Bulgaria to show investors will pay substantially more for a controlling stake.11Bae,Kang,and Kim(2002)use evidence from mergers by Korean business groups to show that acquisition prices tend to enhance the value of otherfirms in the group,to the detriment of minority shareholders.Bertrand,Mehta,and Mullainathan(2002)use earnings data on Indian business groups to show evidence consistent with tunneling by the largest shareholder within the group.Finally,Lemmon and Lins(2003)show a relation between ownership structure and the decline infirm value during the Asianfinancial crises.12In our sample,the percentage of shares controlled by the largest shareholder for the medianfirm is42.6%;the interquartile range is 29%–58%.In the summary section,we discuss the Chinese government’s expressed intent to retain control of listedfirms,particularly in key industries.13Prior to2005,all block shares are non-tradable.In July2005,the Chinese government announced a policy aimed at eventually converting these restricted shares into tradable shares.This initiative is part of a broad reform program that will take years to ter,we discuss why this initiative is unlikely to fully resolve the agency problems that lead to tunneling in China.14The tradable shares are further subdivided into Tradable-A shares, which are publicly traded among domestic investors,and foreign(B,H, and N)shares.B-shares are available to foreign investors and are traded on the two domestic exchanges,whereas H and N shares have an overseas listing.In this study,the market price of a listed company refers to the price of its Tradable-A shares.G.Jiang et al./Journal of Financial Economics98(2010)1–20 4Several papers have shown weaknesses in the country’s legal andfinancial systems(e.g.,see Liu,2006;Allen,Qian, and Qian,2005;Fan,Wong,and Zhang,2007;Cheung, Jing,Rau,and Stoutaitis,2006),and the mitigating effect of regulatory changes(Bai,Liu,Lu,Song,and Zhang,2004; Berkman,Cole,and Hu,2005).A consistent theme is that better corporate governance is valuable in China’s emer-ging economy,and improvements in governance are rewarded in market valuations.A second group of China studies explored the effect of ownership structures on earnings management in Chinesefirms(Liu and Lu,2007; Chen,Lee,and Li,2003;Peng,Wei,and Yang,2006;Jian and Wong,2010).Several of these studies show a phenomenon called‘‘propping,’’in which the controlling shareholder instigates favorable asset-related transfers so as to meet key performance targets stipulated by market regulators.We believe the economics of tunneling provide an important organizing framework for interpreting these results.Controlling shareholders will sometimes‘‘prop up’’the earnings of afirm through favorable asset transfers,precisely because such actions are needed to facilitate and sustain long-term tunneling.In the absence of tunneling incentives,such costly forms of earnings management are difficult to understand.15Similarly, much of the governance literature is only understandable in the presence of tunneling risk.Improved governance is highly valued in China precisely because of the real and imminent threat of insider abuse,and the dearth of other effective enforcement mechanisms. Again,it is tunneling that helps us to understand thesefindings.In short,our study helps to make sense of earlier results by demonstrating the importance of adopting a tunneling perspective when studying managerial behavior in China.Problems with loans to related parties are,of course, not unique to China.In the United States,a landmark tunneling case involved credit facilities from Adelphia Communications to members of the controlling Rigas family.In Australia,intercorporate loans helped to facilitate the building(and later undoing)of the Alan Bond empire.16During the Asian crisis,manyfirms that experienced the worst price declines made related-party loans(Lemmon and Lins,2003).Similarly,when Mexican banks lend tofirms controlled by the banks’owners,the lending tends to take place on better terms but is more likely to default(La Porta,Lopez-de-Silanes,and Zamarripa, 2003).We show that insiders’use of intercorporate loans to siphon funds reached unprecedented proportions in China.We examine the causes and consequences of this phenomenon,and why various governance mechanisms failed to fully mitigate the problem.3.Empirical analysis3.1.Sample descriptionOur sample consists of1377public companies, listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges during the period1996–2004.We use the CCER China Stock Database,provided by SinoFin Information Services,to obtain fundamental variables,price,and returns information.To be included in our sample,a company must have been listed for at least1year,and havefiled the necessaryfinancial information required for our analysis.Collectively,as of the end of2004,our sample of companies represents85.6%of the total listedfirms(85.2%of the total market capitalization)in China.17Table1presents some descriptive statistics for our sample.In total,we have7557firm-year observations. Chinesefirms all have December year-ends,and the financial information for year t is based onfiscal year-end tÀ1financial reports.Panel A reports the log of total assets(SIZE);market capitalization as of the fourth month after thefiscal year-end in millions of RMB(MV);the total market value of tradable shares(TMV);the book-to-market ratio measured four months after thefiscal year-end(BM);total leverage,defined as total liabilities divided by total assets(LEV);return-on-assets,defined as pre-extraordinary income divided by total assets(ROA); the percentage of shares controlled by the largest shareholder(BLOCK);other receivables in RMB millions (OREC);as well as other receivables deflated by market capitalization(ORECMV),tradable market value (ORECTMV),and total assets(ORECTA).All variables are winsorized at1%and99%.18Panel A shows that the average market capitalization for our sample is3.15billion RMB(approximately381 million U.S.dollars,using the prevailing exchange rate of 8.27during our sample period).Most of thesefirms traded at a multiple of2.5–5.0times book value(BM),and had reported ROAs of between1%and6%.Of particular interest is that most had substantial‘‘Other receivables’’on their balance sheets(ORECTA)—the interquartile range for this variable is between1.7%and10.8%of total assets (2.6–17.5%of tradable market value).As expected,the largest shareholder controls a substantial portion of these firms;the interquartile range for the BLOCK variable is 29.2–58.2%.Panel B reports year-by-year statistics for ORECTA.This panel shows that other receivable,as a percent of total assets,has been on the decline over the sample period.As we show later,the decline coincides with a concerted campaign by the China Securities Regulatory Commission15In fact,both Jian and Wong(2010)and Liu and Lu(2007)find that the pattern of earnings management observed among Chinesefirms is consistent with an abiding desire to facilitate and sustain long-term tunneling.16See Van Peursem,Zhou,Flood,and Buttimore(2007)for a detailed analysis of both the Adelphia and Bond cases.17Throughout the paper,market capitalization(MV)refers to the value of tradable shares multiplied by total shares outstanding,both tradable and non-tradable.TMV refers to the market value of the tradable shares alone.18All key results are robust to alternative winsorization techniques, including cross-sectional winsorization each year,winsorizing the entire sample,and no winsorization.G.Jiang et al./Journal of Financial Economics98(2010)1–205。

薪酬福利(英文)

薪酬福利(英文)

Deal Maker
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Misalignment in compensation & benefits strategies
Misalignment in compensation
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People issues substantially impact pre-deal and post-deal financial results
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Client CFO: “M&A Success is About People AND Numbers”
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Why do “People Factor” failures still happen?
1. Lack of awareness of the substantial financial impact 2. HR issues not sufficiently considered in overall M&A process 3. Unclear strategic rationale for target business and related HR
Just 23% of all acquisitions earn their cost of capital

Large shareholders and disclosure strategies

Large shareholders and disclosure strategies

Large shareholders and disclosure strategies:Evidence fromIPO lockup expirations$Yonca Ertimur a,Ewa Sletten b,n,Jayanthi Sunder ca Leeds School of Business,University of Colorado at Boulder,419UCB,995Regent Drive,Boulder,CO80309,USAb Boston College,140Commonwealth Avenue,Fulton520D,Chestnut Hill,MA02482,USAc University of Arizona,1130E Helen Street,Suite301G,Tucson,AZ85712,USAa r t i c l e i n f oArticle history:Received11December2011Received in revised form23May2014Accepted4June2014Available online14June2014JEL classification:M41M45G24G12G14D82Keywords:IPO lockupVoluntary disclosureManagement forecastsUncertaintyVenture capitalistsa b s t r a c tWe examine the effect of large shareholders'ex ante selling incentives on firms'voluntarydisclosure choices in the setting of IPO lockup expirations.We find evidence thatmanagers delay disclosures of bad news,not for their own benefit,but to enableinfluential pre-IPO shareholders to sell their shares at more favorable prices.Delays aremore pronounced when aggregate selling incentives are greater,when uncertainty is high,and when venture capitalists,influential investors with strong selling incentives,ownmore shares.Simultaneously,managers'disclosure decisions reflect litigation concerns;no significant delays occur when litigation risk is high or when managers tradethemselves.&2014Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.1.IntroductionPrevious studies(Noe,1999;Cheng and Lo,2006;Rogers,2008)find that managers in a position to benefit themselves through strategic disclosure do not do so,likely due to the efficacy of insider trading regulations and the threat of shareholder litigation.However,managers'own profit is not the only potential incentive for strategic rge shareholders such as venture capitalists(VCs),private equity and hedge fund investors hold considerable influence over management(Gompers and Lerner,2004;Brav et al.,2008;Klein and Zur,2009),and it is an open question whether these shareholders exert their influence to affect(and profit from)firms'voluntary disclosure strategies.Our findings suggestContents lists available at ScienceDirectjournal homepage:/locate/jaeJournal of Accounting and Economics/10.1016/j.jacceco.2014.06.0020165-4101/&2014Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.☆We thank Stephen Baginski,Brian Cadman,Fabrizio Ferri,Mei Feng,Alan Jagolinzer,Jeff Ng,Chris Noe(the referee),Jong Chool Park,Sugata Roychowdhury,Katherine Schipper,Thor Sletten,Shyam V.Sunder,Mohan Venkatachalam,Beverly Walther,Ross Watts(the editor),and seminar participants at the AAA Annual Meetings,Multinational Finance Society Conference,Arizona State University,Columbia University,INSEAD,MIT Sloan Economics and Finance Seminar,Ohio State University,University of Colorado at Boulder,University of Southern California,University of Texas at Dallas,and University of Utah for their valuable comments.An earlier version of this paper was titled“Voluntary Disclosure Strategy around IPO Lockup Expirations.”n Corresponding author.E-mail addresses:yonca.ertimur@(Y.Ertimur),ewa.sletten@(E.Sletten),jayanthisunder@(J.Sunder).Journal of Accounting and Economics58(2014)79–95large shareholders influence managers of bad-news firms to delay disclosures when these investors have high selling incentives,especially when litigation risk is low.We focus on voluntary disclosures around IPO lockup expirations.Lockups are voluntary agreements between the IPO firm and its underwriter prohibiting pre-IPO shareholders from selling their stock for a contractually agreed period after the IPO.The lockup expiration provides a powerful setting in which to identify large shareholders'selling incentives and study their effect on disclosure for the following reasons.First,large pre-IPO shareholders influence managerial decisions through their ownership stakes,board membership,compensation contracts,and relationships with management (Barry et al.,1990;Lerner,1995).Second,lockup expiration is associated with large-scale selling by pre-IPO shareholders (Field and Hanka,2001).Third,lockup expiration dates are publicly known and anticipated.This allows us to identify ex ante selling incentives of influential shareholders around a specific date.Finally,newly-public firms are characterized by particularly high levels of information asymmetry between management and the firm's dispersed shareholders,making disclosure a powerful tool to influence the stock price at the time of selling.Voluntary disclosure of private information affects the selling price for pre-IPO shareholders through two channels.First,disclosure immediately affects the stock price when news is released.As a result,pre-IPO shareholders favor releasing good news early and delaying bad news in the lockup expiration quarter to maximize the stock price at the time of sale.Second,disclosure affects information uncertainty about the firm,which,in turn,impacts how stock price responds to selling (Kyle,1985).We refer to this phenomenon as “the price impact of selling.”Recent empirical evidence suggests disclosure of bad news increases firm-specific uncertainty (Brown et al.,2009;Rogers et al.,2009),which intensifies the price impact of selling.Thus,to avoid increases in uncertainty and mitigate the price impact of selling,pre-IPO shareholders have an added incentive to favor delaying the disclosure of bad news until after they sell.We study voluntary disclosure choices around IPO lockup expirations in the context of quarterly management earnings forecasts.Management forecasts allow us to conduct precise tests of the timing of a disclosure relative to an event because managers can preempt news conveyed by quarterly earnings announcements by issuing forecasts during the quarter.As a result,we are able to study whether managers accelerate or delay disclosures in the lockup expiration quarter.Conditioning on whether earnings news is good or bad,we compare forecast propensity in the lockup expiration quarter with that in benchmark quarters.In both univariate and multivariate analyses,we find that,conditional on having bad earnings news,the propensity to issue a forecast is approximately 36%lower in lockup expiration quarters than in benchmark quarters.In contrast,managers do not accelerate disclosures of good news in lockup expiration quarters relative to benchmark quarters,presumably because disclosure of good news is less credible (Hutton et al.,2003)and does not reduce firm-specific uncertainty (Rogers et al.,2009).Together,these results suggest only bad-news firms choose a disclosure strategy that favors pre-IPO shareholders in the lockup expiration quarter.Selective disclosure in the lockup expiration quarter should vary with pre-IPO shareholders'ex ante selling incentives.We first study aggregate selling incentives,as captured by predicted abnormal trading volume after the lockup expiration,and find firms are more likely to delay disclosure in bad-news lockup expiration quarters as predicted trading volume increases (i.e.as selling incentives increase).Next,because selling incentives and the ability to influence disclosure strategy likely vary across shareholders,we shift our attention to the selling incentives of different types of pre-IPO shareholders:VCs,managers,and all other pre-IPO shareholders,hereafter the residual group.Prior literature suggests VCs both possess considerable influence over managers and significantly reduce their ownership after the lockup expiration (Field and Hanka,2001).Accordingly,we predict firms with a higher percentage of VC ownership locked-up at the time of the IPO (i.e.stronger selling incentives)are more likely to delay disclosure in bad-news lockup expiration quarters.Our findings are consistent with this prediction.In contrast,our results suggest managers'selling incentives do not affect disclosure strategy,consistent with the evidence in Noe (1999)and Cheng and Lo (2006).Finally,we do not find a significant relation between ownership of the residual group and disclosure choices,likely because of the inherent heterogeneity of this group's selling incentives and ability to influence disclosure choices.We further expect the decision to delay disclosures of bad news to be shaped by litigation risk and firm-specific uncertainty.Litigation risk can deter nondisclosure of bad news (Skinner,1994,1997;Kasznik and Lev,1995;Field et al.,2005).Consequently,we predict bad-news firms delay disclosures in response to high selling incentives only when the firm's litigation risk is relatively low.Our evidence supports this prediction.Similarly,we find bad-news firms delay disclosures only when firm-specific uncertainty is high.This result is consistent with bad news intensifying the price impact of selling through its effect on uncertainty.High uncertainty also makes it easier for managers to delay disclosure without triggering scrutiny.The use of ex ante proxies helps us to establish a causal relation between pre-IPO shareholders'selling incentives and strategic disclosure.In additional analyses,we test whether forecast propensity is related to realized sales by readily identifiable pre-IPO shareholders:VCs and managers.We find bad-news firms are more likely to delay disclosure if VCs sell a significant fraction of their shares,but only when the managers do not also sell.This result is likely driven by the asymmetry in SEC Rule 10b-5,which subjects managers but not VCs to litigation risk associated with insider trading.Consequently,managers select disclosure strategies that favor the selling incentives of large pre-IPO shareholders,but not when such strategies put the managers themselves at risk.Delaying bad news disclosure benefits pre-IPO shareholders only if the adverse price reaction to earnings news can be postponed until after these shareholders paring stock returns of bad-news firms with and without forecasts during the lockup expiration quarter,we find two striking differences.First,non-disclosing firms delay the adverse stock price reaction until earnings announcement (approximately À7%,on average)and therefore earn higher returns during theY.Ertimur et al./Journal of Accounting and Economics 58(2014)79–9580Y.Ertimur et al./Journal of Accounting and Economics58(2014)79–9581 lockup expiration quarter.Second,non-disclosing firms avoid any price impact of selling after lockup expiration while the price impact for forecasting firms is significantly negative(approximatelyÀ4%at the average trading volume).Collectively, these results suggest pre-IPO shareholders benefit from delayed disclosure of bad news.Our study highlights how large investors'short-horizon incentives affect managerial disclosure choices.The findings suggest influential shareholders induce managers to undertake disclosure strategies that do not result in direct benefits for the management,but instead profit the shareholders.Specifically,we document firms are more likely to delay disclosure of bad news when these shareholders possess strong selling incentives.Thus,some large and influential shareholders are able to shape firms'disclosure choices to their own benefit.This contrasts the alternative strategy followed by transient institutional investors who invest in firms with higher disclosure quality(Bushee and Noe,2000).We also offer insights into how a previously-neglected cost of disclosure—exacerbating firm-specific information uncertainty—affects disclosure strategies.Increases in uncertainty lead to a greater price impact of selling after lockup expiration,providing an additional motive for large shareholders to delay disclosures in bad-news lockup expiration quarters.Finally,our paper contributes to the IPO literature by documenting that firms adopt selective disclosure policies that favor pre-IPO shareholders.Gompers and Lerner(1998)suggest VCs exit by distributing overvalued shares;our paper complements this finding by identifying a mechanism—the disclosure or non-disclosure of information to the market—through which VCs increase the value of their shares.Our findings have implications for other settings where large active shareholders such as hedge funds and private equity investors could similarly influence disclosure choices.The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows.Section2describes the institutional background of our research setting and develops our hypotheses.Section3outlines our study's sample selection procedure.Sections4through6discuss our results,and Section7concludes.2.Institutional background and hypothesis developmentIPO firms typically enter into lockup agreements with their underwriters that restrict pre-IPO shareholders from selling their shares for a specific period after the IPO.1These restrictions appear to be binding on average—trading volume spikes by 85%of previous average volume when the lockup expires and eventually settles at approximately40%higher than the lockup period volume(Field and Hanka,2001;Bradley et al.,2001).The IPO literature attributes this increase in trading volume to pre-IPO shareholders selling their shares for the first time.The period following lockup expiration provides researchers with an ex ante proxy for large shareholder selling incentives for at least two reasons.First,the lockup expiration date is publicly known and specified in the IPO prospectus. Second,some large pre-IPO shareholders sell a significant fraction of their shares in the lockup expiration quarter.For example,some VCs distribute shares to their investors immediately upon lockup expiration(Gompers and Lerner,1998). These investors,in turn,sell their shares in the open market,generating abnormal trading volume.As for non-VC backed firms,there is sustained abnormal trading volume for several days following the lockup expiration(Field and Hanka,2001).Pre-IPO shareholders benefit from executing sales at higher prices.While the lockup date is publicly known,average abnormal returns following lockup expiration are negative—a conundrum the finance literature has studied extensively.2 This drop in stock price erodes the trading gains to the pre-IPO shareholders and creates particularly strong incentives for disclosure strategies that allow these shareholders to sell shares at more favorable prices.Disclosing good news early and delaying bad news until earnings announcements following the lockup expiration will maximize trading gains for pre-IPO shareholders by altering investors'assessments of firm value(Ajinkya and Gift,1984;Waymire,1984;Lang and Lundholm, 2000;Hutton et al.,2003;Sletten,2012).Firms with bad news can delay disclosure without investors inferring the news as long as the firms can pool with a group of good-news firms for which disclosure is particularly costly,less credible,or whose managers possess only imprecise information and hence do not disclose it(Verrecchia,1983;Dye,1985;Acharya et al.,2011).Disclosure also affects investors'uncertainty about firm value.While theory suggests transparent disclosure reduces market uncertainty(Diamond and Verrecchia,1991),empirical evidence contradicts this intuition,at least with respect to the disclosure of bad news(Brown et al.,2009;Rogers et al.,2009).3Rogers et al.(2009),for example,find that,while good-news management forecasts do not have a significant effect on uncertainty(measured by the implied volatility of stock options),bad-news forecasts lead to a sustained increase in uncertainty until the subsequent earnings announcements. When coupled with intense selling by pre-IPO shareholders,such increases in uncertainty can potentially hurt stock prices. Specifically,theoretical models(e.g.,Kyle,1985)predict a greater price impact of selling when investors believe they are 1Brav and Gompers(2003)report lockup agreements in99%of the firms in their sample of2,871IPOs.Most lockup periods are180days long.Fieldand Hanka(2001)find that the fraction of firms with a180-day lockup period increased from43%in1988to91%in1996.In our final sample of776IPO firms from1995-2005,92.5%of firms have the standard180-day lockup period.2Prior studies examine several potential explanations for this price drop,including downward sloping demand curves,increase in bid-ask spreads, temporary price pressure from selling,and larger than expected sales by insiders(Bradley et al.,2001;Field and Hanka,2001;Cao et al.,2004).While none of these fully explain the negative returns,Field and Hanka(2001)argue that abnormal returns around the unlock day are not large enough to be profitably arbitraged away.3Several explanations have been proposed in the finance literature for the increase in volatility after bad news events,a well-documented empirical finding.Black(1976)attributes it to the leverage effect resulting from the drop in price in response to the bad news.Christie(1982)and Schwert(1989) argue that this effect is small.Campbell and Hentschel(1992)propose a model for a volatility feedback explanation.Brown et al.(1988)find evidence consistent with this explanation when they document that returns to bad news tend to be larger than returns to good news.more informationally disadvantaged.4Consistent with this prediction,negative returns after lockup expirations are more pronounced among firms characterized by greater information uncertainty (Bradley et al.,2001;Ofek and Richardson,2000).Therefore,delaying the disclosure of bad news until the next earnings announcement mitigates the price impact of selling following lockup expiration and increases the trading gains to pre-IPO shareholders.These two effects lead to the following hypotheses:Hypothesis 1A.Forecast propensity of firms with bad quarterly news is significantly lower in the lockup expiration quarter than in quarters with normal levels of selling.Hypothesis 1B.Forecast propensity of firms with good quarterly news is significantly higher in the lockup expiration quarter than in quarters with normal levels of selling.While,on average,pre-IPO shareholders possess strong selling incentives following the lockup expiration,there are significant cross-sectional differences in the likelihood and the magnitude of selling across firms.For example,Field and Hanka (2001)find firms with bigger run-ups in stock price following an IPO,firms with VC-backing,and firms with more locked-up shares experience greater selling.We expect the incentives to use selective disclosure to be stronger among firms that,based on ex ante factors,are likely to experience high levels of selling after lockup expiration.We hypothesize that:Hypothesis 2.The strategy of delaying the disclosure of bad news and promptly releasing good news in the lockup expiration quarter is more pronounced among firms with high aggregate selling incentives.Selling incentives vary not only across firms but also across different types of pre-IPO shareholders.Because pre-IPO shareholders are restricted from selling their shares until after lockup expiration,the higher the pre-IPO locked-up ownership of a specific shareholder,the greater the number of shares available for selling or distribution after lockup expiration.However,for these selling incentives to affect disclosure policy,pre-IPO shareholders must also possess the ability to influence managers'disclosure choices.VCs are an easily identifiable group of pre-IPO shareholders who possess both significant locked-up ownership at the time of the IPO and an ability to influence firms'disclosure choices before lockup expiration.Field and Hanka (2001)find VCs hold a significant fraction of shares in IPO firms (23%on average)and,among large institutional or corporate shareholders,VCs are the most likely to sell their shares in the year following the IPO.Further,VCs are typically active shareholders;they not only finance the start-ups but also play a monitoring and advisory role and are involved in strategic planning,managerial recruitment and training (Berlin,1998;Gorman and Sahlman,1989;Hellmann and Puri,2000,2002;Lerner,1995;Cadman and Sunder,2014).Thus,VCs develop close ties to and command influence over management that passive institutional investors are unlikely to enjoy.Consequently,we expect firms with a higher fraction of locked-up shares held by VCs at the time of the IPO to be more likely to pursue a selective disclosure strategy.Managers are another group of pre-IPO shareholders who can benefit from strategic disclosure choices.However,unlike VCs,whose distributions of shares are exempt from the SEC's Section 16rules,managers face significant litigation risk stemming from SEC Rule 10b-5and other insider trading regulation.Cheng and Lo (2006)argue that both disclosing good news and withholding bad news prior to insider selling entail significant litigation risk.Consistent with this argument,prior literature finds no evidence of firms strategically withholding bad news before insider sales.In the case of good news,there is an association between disclosure and subsequent insider selling but this result is driven by managers timing trades following disclosure of good news rather than strategically disclosing good news prior to their sales (Noe,1999;Cheng and Lo,2006).Thus,we do not expect the disclosure of good news and non-disclosure of bad-news in the lockup expiration quarter to be related to shares locked held by managers.Various groups of shareholders other than VCs and management (e.g.,corporate,institutional,and angel investors,friends and family,as well as rank and file employees)also likely have significant pre-IPO ownership in the firm.This residual group of shareholders is heterogeneous with respect to selling incentives and ability to influence disclosure choices.We therefore do not make a directional prediction about the relation between selective disclosure behavior and the degree of locked-up ownership among the residual group of shareholders.In summary,among various pre-IPO shareholders,VCs are a group of investors that is clearly identifiable and has both strong incentives and the ability to influence the firms'disclosure strategy.Consequently,we hypothesize that:Hypothesis 3.The strategy of delaying the disclosure of bad news and promptly releasing good news in the lockup expiration quarter is more pronounced for firms with higher locked-up VC ownership at the time of the IPO.Our hypotheses predict firms engage in strategic forecasting in response to ex ante selling incentives.In additional analyses in Section 4,we explore the role of litigation risk and uncertainty.Further,an extension of our hypotheses is,(i)conditional on the nature of the news,ex post (realized)selling by pre-IPO shareholders is associated with firms'4In most microstructure models,the price impact of large trades arises from information asymmetry between informed investors and the price protection that less informed investors demand.In our tests,we do not distinguish between information asymmetry and overall uncertainty because of the empirical challenges of isolating the information asymmetry part of market rmation asymmetry effects are likely to be high when there is greater uncertainty over firm value because the potential for private information is greater,and any incremental information potentially provides a significant advantage.Therefore,the overall uncertainty acts as an estimate of the upper bound of information asymmetry.Y.Ertimur et al./Journal of Accounting and Economics 58(2014)79–9582Y.Ertimur et al./Journal of Accounting and Economics58(2014)79–9583 disclosure choices,and(ii)disclosure choices influence the timing of related stock returns(i.e.,whether returns occur before or at the earnings announcement)as well as the price impact of trades after lockup expiration.Sections5and6present the results associated with ex post selling.3.Sample selectionOur sample period spans January1995through January2008.We begin with firms in the SDC database that conducted an IPO from January1995through December2005.The lockup expiration dates of these IPO firms fall from May1995 through November2006.We exclude ADRs,unit offers,and firms that made secondary offerings during the lockup period. We merge this dataset with CRSP and COMPUSTAT,which yields a sample of2,973firms.For these firms,we obtain quarterly earnings announcement dates from COMPUSTAT and supplement them with the dates from I/B/E/S when not available on COMPUSTAT.For each of our sample firms,we next identify the announcement quarter in which the lockup expires and,because this is the primary event quarter,we require the availability of necessary data for this quarter.5This restriction results in a sample of2,308firms.We then extend this sample to include the quarter immediately preceding the lockup expiration quarter and four subsequent quarters.6We require the lockup expiration to be distinct from the earnings announcement and,therefore,exclude firms for which the lockup expiration coincides with or falls within the10days preceding the earnings announcement.This restriction also ensures the pre-IPO shareholders have sufficient time to trade after the lockup expires and before information is released through the earnings announcement.We also exclude firms with lockup expirations falling within the first ten days of the quarter because this period serves as our estimation window for quarterly news.These filters result in a sample of 1,705firms.Finally,we require all firm-quarters in our sample to have the requisite data to compute control variables.Among these, an important restriction pertains to our ability to compute quarterly news:we only use firm-quarters with at least one one-quarter-ahead analyst forecast issued in the first ten days of the quarter.We do this because we compute the news in the quarter as the difference between the actual earnings announced at the end of the quarter and the consensus of analysts' forecasts of these earnings issued at the beginning of the quarter(see Appendix A for a detailed definition of all variables). While requiring the availability of analysts'forecasts reduces our sample size,it allows us to capture the specific news pertaining to quarterly earnings and produces a timelier estimate of quarterly news than alternatives(such as earnings that follow a random walk)would permit.The final sample with required data available consists of776unique IPO firms comprising3,126announcement quarters.Table1provides descriptive statistics and univariate tests of differences between firm-quarters with and without management forecasts.Mean analyst following is4.74,suggesting a reasonable level of analyst interest in our sample firms. Mean institutional ownership is36%,which is of a similar order of magnitude to descriptive statistics reported by Field and Lowry(2009).Our sample firms are growth firms—mean Market-to-Book ratio is4.42—with low levels of profitability—the mean Return on Assets isÀ0.03.The magnitude of news seems to matter in the disclosure decision:the magnitude of bad news is greater and that of good news is smaller in firm-quarters with a forecast relative to firm-quarters without a forecast. Further,analyst following is higher in firm-quarter observations where the firm provides a forecast.Finally,firm-quarter observations where firms provide forecasts are characterized by significantly higher levels of litigation probability.4.Firms'propensity to issue management forecasts in the lockup expiration quarter4.1.Is there evidence of selective disclosure in the lockup expiration quarter?To test Hypotheses1A and1B,we compare the probability of forecasting during the lockup expiration quarter to the probability of forecasting during the subsequent four quarters in sub-samples of firm-quarters with good and bad news. To the extent managers receive news early,they can voluntarily disclose it through a management forecast,or they can wait until the end of the quarter to reveal the news at the earnings announcement.7To measure the news during the quarter and capture forecasting behavior,we divide each announcement quarter into two periods.We measure the market's expectations of earnings as the mean of analysts'forecasts issued over the first10days of the announcement quarter (news estimation window).We categorize quarters where the actual earnings are less than(greater than or equal to)the 5Announcement quarter is defined as the period starting on the day of the quarterly earnings announcement for quarter tÀ1and ending on the day before the quarterly earnings announcement for quarter t.6Since the maximum length of a quiet period after the IPO in our sample period is40days,and the majority of IPO firms have lockups extending for 180days,starting the sample only with the quarter immediately preceding the lockup expiration quarter alleviates concerns regarding the potential impact of the quiet period on forecast propensity.7We focus exclusively on management forecasts as the channel through which managers communicate earnings news.Managers could provide information about components of performance that have implications for the current quarter earnings without providing direct guidance on earnings(e.g., through press releases about contracts won or lost).Analysts and investors also could partially infer earnings news that arises from industry-or economy-wide shocks without any forecasts.However,management forecasts are an important component of a firm's disclosure strategy,particularly with respect to conveying earnings news(Beyer et al.,2010).Abstracting from other information channels is unlikely to introduce any systematic bias into our analyses.。

Ownership and Control of German Corporations

Ownership and Control of German Corporations

Ownership and Control ofGerman CorporationsJulian FranksLondon Business SchoolColin MayerUniversity of OxfordIn a study of the ownership of German corporations,wefind a strong relation between board turnover and corporate performance,little association of concentrations of owner-ship with managerial disciplining,and only limited evidence that pyramid structures can be used for control purposes.The static relationship of ownership to control in Germany is therefore similar to the United Kingdom and the United States.However,there are marked differences in dynamic relations involving transfers of ownership.There is an active market in share blocks giving rise to changes in control,but the gains are limited and accrue solely to the holders of large blocks,not to minority investors.We provide evidence of low overall benefits to control changes and the exploitation of private benefits of control.The United Kingdom and United States have“outsider systems”of cor-porate control with large equity markets,dispersed ownership,and active markets in corporate control.In contrast,a majority of Continental European capital markets have“insider systems”with small numbers of quotedThis article is part of an ESRC funded project on“Capital Markets,Corporate Governance and the Market for Corporate Control,”no.W102251103.We are also grateful forfinancial support from the European Union’s Training and Mobility of Researchers Network,contract no.FRMX-CT960054.This article has benefited from interviews with numerous individuals in Germany and the United Kingdom.We are particularly grateful to Gerhard Hablizer of Commerzbank,Ellen Schneider-Lenne and Ulrich Weiss of Deutsche Bank,Charles Lowe of Deutsche Bank UK,Dr.Klaus Christian Hubner and Berndt Jonas of Fried.Krupp AG,Dr.Peter Krailic of McKinsey,Peter von Elten and Andreas Buddenbrock of JP Morgan,Greg Morgan of Munger, Tolles&Olson,Malcolm Thwaites of Morgan Grenfell,Dr Kiran Bhojani and Dr Wilhelm Heilmann of Veba AG,Michael Treichl of Warburg,Nicholas Weickart of Weickart,Simon,&Westpfahl,Hans Peter Peters and Andrew Neumann of WestLB.The article has been presented at the conference on Relational Investing organized by Columbia University,at the ESF Network in Financial Markets Workshop on Corporate Finance at Lisbon,the annual meetings of the Western Finance Association in Santa Fe in1994,and at the annual meetings of the American Finance Association in San Francisco in1996.It has been presented at seminars at Cardiff University,Center for Financial Studies,Frankfurt,City University,London,HEC,Lausanne,Liege, London Business School,Oxford,Penn State,Southern California,Virginia,Arizona,Vienna,and Warwick. We wish to thank the following for many useful comments and suggestions:Harold Baums,Erik Berglöf, Arnoud Boot,Wolfgang Buehler,Bill Carleton,Wendy Carlin,Jeremy Edwards,Klaus Fischer,Rajna Gibson, Bob Harris,Martin Hellwig,David Hirshleifer,Kose John,Steve Kaplan,John Moore,Mark Roe,and Luigi Zingales.We are grateful to an anonymous referee and Gary Gorton(editor)for their many suggestions.We are grateful to Marc Goergen,Luis Correia da Silva,and Myriam Soria for research assistance on this project. This article records the views of the authors alone and not those of any person interviewed or their associated institutions.Any remaining errors are the sole responsibility of the authors.Address correspondence to Julian Franks,London Business School,Regent’s Park,London NW14SA,United Kingdom.The Review of Financial Studies Winter2001V ol.14,No.4,pp.943–977©2001The Society for Financial StudiesThe Review of Financial Studies/v14n42001companies,concentrated share ownership,and comparatively low levels of takeover activity.Germany is a good example of an insider system.It has fewer than800quoted companies,compared with nearly3,000in the United Kingdom,and85%of the largest quoted companies have a single shareholder owning more than25%of voting shares.Corporate ownership is character-ized by a strikingly high concentration of ownership,primarily in the hands of families and other companies.Corporate holdings frequently take the form of complex webs of holdings and pyramids of intercorporate holdings.Bank influence and control are extensive where shareholdings are widely dispersed. How does this pattern of ownership affect corporate control?According to Shleifer and Vishny(1986),concentrated share ownership overcomes free-rider problems of corporate control that affect stock markets,such as in the United Kingdom and United States,with dispersed ownership.It should therefore be associated with more active corporate governance.On the other hand,according to Bebchuk(1999),insider systems are afflicted by private benefits to the detriment of corporate efficiency and La Porta,Lopes-de-Silanes,and Shleifer(1999)argue that the German civil code provides weak protection for minorities at the expense of the operation of its capital markets. Ownership concentrations may therefore be associated with weak rather than strong corporate governance.We evaluate these conflicting views by investigating the relationship bet-ween board turnover and corporate performance forfirms with different own-ership patterns.Kaplan(1994b)has examined this issue and concluded that while management board turnover in Germany is related to performance,nei-ther the size nor nature of ownership has much of an influence.We extend his work by using more elaborate measures of pyramids and a new database on proxy votes.We record how these control vehicles significantly influence the relationship between cashflow and voting rights and relate these new measures of ownership and control to board turnover and performance.We find,first,that board turnover in Germanfirms is similar to that of U.K. and U.S.firms.Second,there is a close relationship between board turnover and poor performance in Germany,as has been documented in the United Kingdom and United States.Third,while large blocks of shares held by families are often owned indirectly through other companies,that is,through pyramids,they are only used for control purposes in about one-third of cases. Fourth,the relation between managerial disciplining and performance is no worse in widely heldfirms,where banks exercise significant control,than in companies with large concentrated ownership.Thus far,both this article and Kaplan’s take a static view of the relationship between ownership and control.However,it has recently been suggested that there may be significant differences in transfers of ownership—the dynam-ics of control.While there has been virtually no Anglo-American market for corporate control in Germany in the post–World War II period,there is a substantial market in sales of large share stakes.Burkhart,Gromb,and944Ownership and Control of German CorporationsPanunzi(1998)point to the advantages of markets in partial share stakes in overcoming free-rider problems,but Bebchuk(1999)emphasizes the private benefit problems that they may create.Wefind that the characteristics of this market are quite different from its Anglo-American equivalent.Block premia are much lower than target bid premia in takeovers in the United Kingdom and United States,and while sellers of large blocks of shares obtain benefits, minorities do not share at all in the bid premia.Differences between bid premia paid to sellers of large blocks and to minorities provide estimates of the private benefits enjoyed by block holders in Germany,and wefind these to be significant.One explanation for low bid premia is that gains to takeover are small as a consequence of significant impediments to managerial control by new block holders.We document these impediments in several case studies of German takeovers.We examine the extent to which share block sales are associated with managerial disciplining by relating presale performance to subsequent board turnover.Wefind that board turnover in share block sales is appreciably lower than in takeovers in the United Kingdom and United States and that there is little relation between board turnover and corporate performance.These observations are consistent with comparatively low gains to ownership changes.In sum,while static aspects of ownership patterns in Germany do not trans-late into distinctive forms of control,the dynamics—transfers of ownership—operate quite differently.They reveal a smaller scale of merger benefits,the importance of private benefits in the German capital market,and limitations on the control that acquiring shareholders can exercise.Section1describes the structure of ownership and control of German cor-porations and the hypotheses tested.Section2analyzes the static features of German ownership and control:Section2.1evaluates the significance of con-centration of ownership,Section2.2pyramid ownership,and Section2.3the type of owner,including banks and their proxy holdings.Section2.4brings these variables together in regressions of board turnover on the ownership variables.Section3turns from the statics to the dynamics of ownership.Section3.1 reports bid premiums paid to block holders and minority shareholders in sales of blocks.These are used to estimate private benefits of control to block holders.Case studies of takeovers illustrate the influences on merger benefits. Section3.2evaluates the relationship between board turnover,performance, and sales of share blocks.Section4summarizes the results.1.The Structure of German Ownership and Control and the Hypotheses TestedIn Section1.1we describe the datasets used and the structure of ownership and control of German corporations.In Section1.2we describe the hypothe-ses tested in the article.945The Review of Financial Studies/v14n420011.1The structure of ownership and controlTwo main datasets were collected for this study.The larger set comprises 171quoted industrial and commercial companies collected from Hoppenstedt Stockguide in1990.1The companies in Hoppenstedt are a subset of the pop-ulation of477quoted industrial and commercial companies in Germany in 1990.More detailed information onfinancial performance and board turnover was collected from company accounts on a second sample of75firms, derived from the larger sample of171,for which data were available for the period1989–1994.These75companies formed the basis of much of the analysis reported in rmation on the remaining96 companies was unavailable due to incomplete library records.2We also examined case studies of the accumulation and role of large share stakes in three hostile takeovers that took place in Germany:the bid by the Flick brothers and then Veba AG for Feldmühle Nobel AG in1988and 1989,respectively;the bid for Continental AG by Pirelli in1990and1991; and the bid for Hoesch AG by Krupp AG in1991and1992.These were supplemented by interviews with block holders who had recently acquired control.31.1.1Ownership.Ownership of share stakes was classified by banks, families,industrial companiess,and different types of institutional investors. Data were collected on the size of ownership stakes greater than25%;the type of owner,including bank,family,and corporation;and changes in own-ership through sales of share stakes.4Disclosure of stakes smaller than25% was not compulsory and they were included where available.The size of holdings has been classified by those starting at25%,50%, and75%;these constitute important thresholds that determine the control rights of shareholders.A minority stake greater than25%provides a blocking minority which may be used,for example,to prevent issues of new shares or the dismissal of members of the supervisory board,and,when the company’s constitution requires it,the removal of a voting restriction.A majority stake of less than75%allows wide control over the management of thefirm, but is subject to a blocking minority.For example,a simple majority is1Twenty-nine banks and insurance companies were omitted to allow the analysis to focus on the nonfinancial sector.2Thefirst set offirms(the“171”)includes the largest German quotedfirms:the average size,based on market values of equity and preference shares,is2.34billion DM.Almost50%fall in the highest quintile of all quoted industrial and commercial companies.The second set of75companies were mainly the largest companies in our sample of171,with an average market capitalization of4.29billion DM;73%were in the highest quintile of all industrial and commercial companies.3Interviews were arranged with Commerzbank,Deutsche Bank,Deutsche Bank UK,Krupp AG,McKinsey,JP Morgan,Morgan Grenfell,Munger,Tolles&Olson,Warburg,Weickart,Simon,&Westpfahl,WestLB,and Veba AG.4Ownership data were collected from Hoppenstedt Stockguide,supplemented by Saling Aktienfuhrer and Com-merzbank’s wer gehoert zu wem,a guide on shareholdings produced triennially.946Ownership and Control of German CorporationsTable1Proportion of companies with a single shareholding in excess of25%,50%,and75%for the sample of 171large industrial quoted companies in1990Proportion of companies with ashare stake in excess of25%50%75% panies with a large shareholder85.4%57.3%22.2%the largest shareholder being...1.Another German company27.5%21.1%9.9%2.An insurance company1.8%0.0%0.0%3.A trust/an institutional investor12.9%6.4%1.8%4.A family group20.5%16.4%5.3%5.A foreign company a9.9%8.8%5.3%6.A bank5.8%0.0%0.0%7.The German State1.2%1.2%0.0%8.Other German authorities3.5%2.9%0.0%9.Unknown2.3%0.6%0.0%panies without a large shareholding greater than14.6%42.7%77.8%25,50,or75%,respectively.Total b100.0100.0100.0The table reports the proportion of companies with a large panies are partitioned into those that have one shareholder owning at least25%,50%,and75%of the voting equity,respectively.The table partitions large shareholders into various categories including other German companies,insurance companies,trust and institutional investors,families,foreign companies,banks,German state and other German authorities.Sources:Hoppenstedt and own calculations.a Including foreign holding companies.b Discrepancies in the total may be due to rounding errors.required to appoint members of supervisory boards when existing contracts expire,but may not be sufficient for dismissal during their contract period. In the hostile takeover bid of the German tire manufacturer Continental by Pirelli,Continental management sought protection by putting a motion to its shareholders increasing the majority required to dismiss members of the supervisory board from50%to75%.A stake of75%is not subject to a blocking minority.Table1describes the number and owners of share stakes larger than25%, 50%,and75%of voting equity in our sample of171quoted industrial and commercial companies in1990.The most striking feature of the sample is that for85%of the companies there is at least one large shareholder owning more than25%of voting shares;for57%of companies there is a majority shareholder and for22%the holding is sufficiently large to prevent a blocking minority.In a similar sample of the largest173quoted companies in the United Kingdom in1992,we found that only13%of companies had one shareholder owning more than25%of issued equity,and6%had a shareholder with more than50%of shares.A second feature of the table is that other German industrial compa-nies account for27.5%of dominant shareholdings,and families for a fur-ther20.5%in companies with a single shareholder owning more than25%. German institutional investors,including trusts and insurance companies, account for only14.7%.Their role is a relatively minor one compared with947The Review of Financial Studies/v14n42001that played by institutional investors in the United Kingdom and United States,in part because pension funds are usually unfunded and arefinanced on an ongoing basis out offirm’s own earnings.Equally striking is the mod-est size of bank holdings that account for less than6%of share holdings in excess of25%.Edwards and Fischer(1994)suggest that it is banks’control over proxy votes rather than their own shareholdings that confer control upon them.Table1records only the immediate ownership of the sample of171com-panies.A substantial number of stakes are held by other companies,which are in turn held by other shareholders.This raises questions as to who is the ultimate shareholder,where ultimate control lies,and the motivation for the complex pattern of ownership.We distinguish between two categories of pyramids,those motivated by control,as measured by the ratio of large voting rights to cashflow rights,and those that are simply holding companies.When large shareholdings were held directly by companies,ownership was traced back through the various layers to the ultimate investors,who were families,the state,banks and foreign companies.Where the number of layers is greater than one,we refer to that complex shareholding as a pyramid. We recorded the number of layers in the pyramid and the shareholdings at each level.Thus we were able to determine the number of stakes at different levels in the pyramid.We classified a pyramid as being a controlling pyramid where there were significant violations of one share one vote using various benchmarks.Wefind that families and banks are more prominent at the top of the complex shareholding than at thefirst level.Family holdings account for 33.0%of ultimate shareholdings as against the20.5%at thefirst tier reported in Table1.Banks account for12.0%of ultimate holdings as against the5.8% recorded at thefirst tier in Table1.5Figure1illustrates one such pyramid structure,Daimler Benz,at the begin-ning of the1990s,although it has now significantly altered.There were two blocking minorities in Daimler Benz at level1held by Deutsche Bank and Mercedes Automobil Holdings.There were also two blocking minorities in Mercedes Automobil Holdings at level2held by Stern and Stella,and they in turn had four blocking minority holdings at level3.This case illustrates the potential for acquiring control at low cost—what Bebchuk,Kraakman,and Triantis(1999)describe as a controlling minority structure.For example,Robert Bosch GmbH at level3has a25%holding in Stern Automobil that in turn at level2has a stake of25%in Mercedes which owns a stake of25%at level1in Daimler-Benz.As a result,Bosch’s cash flow rights in Daimler Benz are1.56%,where cashflow rights are defined as the product of the shareholdings at the different levels of the pyramid,5Gorton and Schmid(1999)report that bank holdings of corporate equity in Germany averaged6%in1986; their estimate is therefore similar to ourfirst tier number,but below our ultimate holdings.948Ownership and Control of German CorporationsFigure1OwnershipstructureofDaimlerBenzAG,199949The Review of Financial Studies/v14n42001whereas its voting rights are25%.The ratio of voting to cashflow rights is therefore16.Such shareholding structures violate the principle of one share one vote[see DeAngelo and De Angelo(1985),Grossman and Hart(1988), and Harris and Raviv(1988)].To provide more systematic evidence on complex shareholdings,we exam-ined the data available for38of the75firms.The data include the number of tiers of shareholdings,the size and number of stakes in excess of25%,50%, and75%,and the total of disclosed stakes between10%and25%.Using these data we ascertained the number of cases where pyramids were control vehicles,defined as involving a significant violation of one share one vote. For there to be a violation,the ratio of voting rights to cashflow rights has to be greater than unity,and the cashflow rights and voting rights have to straddle a critical control level of25%,50%,or75%.For example,a voting right of60%and a cashflow right of49%allow the holder to cross the critical control threshold of50%.We found33pyramids,where a pyramid is defined as a company in which there is at least one large shareholder holding more than10%of shares indirectly through another company(see Table2). The mean number of tiers through which the pyramids are held is2.2,where 0describes a direct holding.Thirteen of the33companies had two tiers of indirect shareholdings,10had three tiers,5had four tiers,and another5 had more than four tiers.Eleven companies had family shareholdings greater than75%,and in12companies Allianz appeared as a stakeholder,reflecting its significance in German corporate holdings.The average size of all stakes in excess of10%accumulated to47%at level1.In23companies the ratio of voting rights to cashflow rights was greater than one.Table2shows that the average ratio of voting to cashflow rights was1.6in these companies;infive cases it exceeded2.In10of the com-panies,voting rights and cashflow rights crossed one of the critical control levels of25%,50%,or75%.Therefore,using this measure of violation of one share one vote,10of the33pyramids can be described as a controlling pyramid.Although in23of the33pyramids no one shareholder used intermediary companies to span a control threshold,coalitions might do so.The three large shareholders in Holzmann—Deutsche Bank(25.9%),Commerzbank(10%), and Hochtief(24.9%)—have total holdings of60.8%,with the remaining 39.2%widely merzbank and Hochtief together can form a blocking minority.In Table2,coalitions in30companies could in principle vote more than25%of shares,in19they could vote more than50%,and in4more than75%of shares.In13companies,the coalitions crossed a critical control threshold of25%,in11of50%,and in4of75%.Another form of coalition is cross-shareholdings.Examining a sample of major German banks and insurance companies which exert an important influence in widely held companies,Adams(1994)found that they protect themselves from hostile takeovers and other forms of outside control via a950Ownership and Control of German CorporationsT a b l e 2I n c i d e n c e o f c o n t r o l l i n g p y r a m i d sN o .o f c o m p a n i e s w i t h N o .o f c o n t r o l l i n g m u l t i p l e l a y e r s o f A v e r a g e r a t i o o f v o t i n g p y r a m i d s c r o s s i n g s h a r e h o l d i n g s ,i .e .r i g h t s t o c a s h flo w r i g h t s t h r e s h o l d s o f 25%,50%,S i z e o f s a m p l ep y r a m i d s (s a m p l e s i z e =23)o r 75%N o .w i t h c o a l i t i o n s o f N o .o f c o a l i t i o n s w i t h i n v e s t o r s e x c e e d i n g c o n t r o l l i n g p y r a m i d s t h r e s h o l d s o fc r o s s i n g t h r e s h o ld s o f25%50%75%25%50%75%38331.6103019413114T h e t a b l e p r o v i d e s a n a n a l y s i s o f t h e s a m p l e o f 38G e r m a n fir m s w i t h m u l t i p l e l a y e r s o f s h a r e h o l d i n g s .P y r a m i d s a r e d e fin e d a s c o m p a n i e s t h a t a r e o w n e d b y a t l e a s t o n e i n t e r m e d i a r y s h a r e h o l d e r ,i .e .,t h e r e a r e a t l e a s t t w o (v e r t i c a l )s h a r e h o l d i n g s w h e r e t h e i n t e r m e d i a r y h o l d s a t l e a s t a 10%s t a k e .T h e a v e r a g e r a t i o o f v o t i n g t o c a s h flo w r i g h t s i s c a l c u l a t e d a s v o t i n g r i g h t s o f 25%,50%,o r 75%a s s o c i a t e d w i t h b l o c k h o l d i n g s d i v i d e d b y t h e p r o d u c t o f t h e s h a r e h o l d i n g s a t d i f f e r e n t l e v e l s o f t h e p y r a m i d .A c o n t r o l l i n g p y r a m i d i s o n e w h e r e t h e r a t i o o f v o t i n g t o c a s h flo w r i g h t s i s g r e a t e r t h a n o n e ,a n d t h e p y r a m i d e n a b l e s a s h a r e h o l d e r t o c r o s s a c r i t i c a l c o n t r o l t h r e s h o l d o f 25%,50%,o r 75%.C o a l i t i o n s a r e c a l c u l a t e d a s t h e s u m o f h o l d i n g s a t t h e fir s t t i e r i n t h e p y r a m i d .951The Review of Financial Studies/v14n42001complex system of cross-shareholdings.Our examination of corporate own-ership failed to uncover significant cross-shareholdings in industrial and com-mercial companies.However,since companies have traditionally only been obliged to disclose holdings in excess of25%,some cross-shareholdings may have been disguised.For example,in a court case it was disclosed that Allianz had a25%shareholding in Bayerische H ypotheken-Und Wechsel-Bank and the latter had about a5%holding in Allianz.Similarly,Allianz held a23% stake in Dresdner Bank,while Dresdner held a10%stake in Allianz.6Such cross-holdings may promote managerial versus ultimate shareholder control.1.1.2Board structure.German companies are governed by a two-tiered board structure[see Baums(1994)and Edwards and Fischer(1994)for a detailed description].Thefirst tier is a supervisory board composed of share-holder and employee representatives and other stakeholders.The supervisory board appoints the management board,equivalent to the executive directors of a U.K.or U.S.board,approves the annual accounts and thefirm’s long-term strategy,and can intervene when there is a serious deterioration in the company’s fortunes.The chairman of the management board is not a mem-ber of the supervisory board and does not normally attend its meetings.The proportion of employee representatives is related to the size of the company and the industry.For our sample it is either one-third or one-half of the total membership depending upon the legal thresholds,which are a function of the size of the company.Board data were collected from Hoppenstedt and Wer ist Wer(the Who’s Who of German companies).The data included the composition of supervi-sory boards and the shareholder or shareholder group responsible for appoint-ing the member of the board,and cases of resignation due to retirement or death.In addition to the name of the individual,the affiliation of board members is provided in the annual reports.Data were also collected on the members of management boards.Annual average turnover of members of the management and supervisory board,including the chairmen,was calculated for the sixfinancial years from 1989to1994for the sample of75companies.Board turnover was defined as the number leaving the board during the year,other than for reasons of death or retirement,divided by the total number of board members at the beginning of the year.Supervisory board turnover in this article refers only to shareholder representatives and excludes employee representatives whose turnover is expected to be unrelated to corporate performance.In addition, the same data were collected for the sample of companies that were involved in block sales for the three-year period straddling the year of sale.Table3reports representation on the supervisory board of the companies in the sample of171in which the dominant shareholder was“another company”6These shareholdings come from Adams(1994)and were collected by Professor E.Wenger in1993.952Table3Categories of shareholders appointing chairman and members of supervisory boards in companies where the major shareholder is“another German company”and“families”Companies where major Companies where the majorshareholder is another company shareholder is a familyProportion ofProportion of supervisory Proportion of Proportion ofchairmen board chairmen supervisoryappointed by appointed by appointed by board appointedlarge large large by large Investor or appointing body shareholder shareholder a shareholder shareholder a Another German company77.8%27.4%5.7%7.2% An insurance company2.2%1.2%2.9%1.3%A family group2.2%1.2%37.1%16.0%A foreign company2.2%1.6%0.0%1.6%A bank4.4%5.5%5.7%4.7% The German state0.0%0.0%2.9%0.0% Other German authorities2.2%1.4%0.0%0.0% Employees0.0%40.3%0.0%37.1% Independent members2.2%5.9%20.0%6.9% Unknown0.0%15.3%25.7%25.1%Total100.0%100.0%100.0%100.0%The table reports the proportion of chairmen and members of the supervisory board appointed by different classes of investors or other appointing bodies.The table also includes the proportion of independent members who are usually,but not exclusively, nominated by the major shareholder.Source:Own calculations based on Hoppenstedt’s Handbuch der Grossunternehmen,Wer ist wer,and company accounts.a Excluding the chairman.or a family.The table shows that representation goes hand in hand with ownership.Where the major shareholder is another company,the shareholder appoints the chairman of the board in more than three-quarters of the sample; in addition,about one-quarter of all remaining members of the board are appointed by the largest shareholder.Where the shareholder is a family,the proportions are lower,but are still very substantial,with appointments by the family exceeding one-third of the chairmen and16.0%of remaining board members;the latter is equivalent to25.4%of all nonemployee members of the board.Moreover,onefifth of chairmen of supervisory boards are independent members who,despite their description,are typically associated with the controlling family.1.1.3Proxy votes and board representation by German banks.Ger-man banks derive their influence not only from their direct holdings of equi-ties,but also from their holdings of proxy votes.They offer a variety of services including advice and voting on behalf of shareholders in company resolutions.The permission to use shareholders’proxies is obtained annually by the banks,although they must inform shareholders of any impending reso-lution and their voting intention so as to provide them with the opportunity to vote otherwise.An important advantage of this service is that it can mitigate the free-rider problems associated with dispersed ownership.On the other hand,it might exacerbate conflicts between bank and shareholder interests.953。

U.S. Family Firms Controlled

U.S. Family Firms Controlled

How Are U.S.Family Firms Controlled?Bel´e n VillalongaHarvard Business SchoolRaphael AmitThe Wharton School,University of PennsylvaniaIn large U.S.corporations,founding families are the only blockholders whose control rights on average exceed their cash-flow rights.We analyze how they achieve this wedge,and at what cost.Indirect ownership through trusts,foundations,limited partnerships,and other corporations is prevalent but rarely creates a wedge(a pyramid).The primary sources of the wedge are dual-class stock,disproportionate board representation,and voting agreements.Each control-enhancing mechanism has a different impact on value.Ourfindings suggest that the potential agency conflict between large shareholders and public shareholders in the United States is as relevant as elsewhere in the world.(JEL G3,G32)Corporate governance scholars and regulators in the United States have tradi-tionally been concerned about protecting investors from managerial entrench-ment and expropriation—the classic agency problem described by Berle and Means(1932)and Jensen and Meckling(1976).Yet,a growing body of liter-ature has shifted attention toward a different agency problem that seems to be of greater concern in most of the world:the expropriation of small investors by large controlling shareholders(Shleifer and Vishny1997).We suggest that this second type of agency problem is also significant in the United States. Several importantfindings have emerged from the international corporate ownership literature.First,mostfirms around the world are controlled by a large shareholder,typically founders or their families(La Porta,L´o pez de Silanes,and Shleifer1999;Claessens,Djankov,and Lang2000;Faccio and An earlier version of this article was circulated under the title“Benefits and Costs of Control-Enhancing Mechanisms in U.S.Family Firms.”We would like to thank an anonymous referee,Michael Weisbach(the editor),Jos´e Manuel Campa,Gary Dushnitsky,Mara Faccio,Stuart Gilson,Josh Lerner,As´ıs Mart´ınez-Jerez, Randall Morck,Stewart Myers,Lynn Paine,Gordon Phillips,David Scharfstein,Andrei Shleifer,Jordan Siegel, Eric Van den Steen,Daniel Wolfenzon,Bernard Yeung,Luigi Zingales,and seminar participants at the Conference on Corporate Governance in Family/Unlisted Firms in Thun(Switzerland),Drexel University,Harvard Business School,Harvard University,IESE,MIT,New York University,the Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard,the University of Maryland,the University of North Carolina,and the University of Wisconsin for their comments. We thank Mary Margaret Spence,Amee Kamdar,and Anna Wroblewska for their assistance with the development of the data set.Bel´e n Villalonga gratefully acknowledges thefinancial support of the Division of Research at the Harvard Business School.Raphael Amit is grateful for thefinancial support of the Robert B.Goergen Chair at the Wharton School,the Wharton Global Family Alliance,and the Rodney L.White Center for Financial Research. All errors are our own.Send correspondence to Bel´e n Villalonga,Harvard Business School,Soldiers Field, Boston,MA02163;telephone:(617)495-5061;fax:(617)496-5305.E-mail:bvillalonga@.Raphael Amit,The Wharton School,University of Pennsylvania,3620Locust Walk,Philadelphia,PA19104;telephone: (215)898-7731.E-mail:amit@.C The Author2008.Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved.For Permissions,please e-mail:journals.permissions@.doi:10.1093/rfs/hhn080Advance Access publication August26,2008The Review of Financial Studies/v22n82009Lang2002).Even in the United States,where ownership dispersion is at its highest,founding families exercise a significant degree of control over a third of the500largest corporations(Anderson and Reeb2003;Villalonga and Amit 2006),and over more than half of all public corporations(Villalonga and Amit 2008).Second,founding families are often able to leverage their control over and above their sheer equity stake through mechanisms such as dual-class stock, pyramidal ownership,and cross-holdings(La Porta,L´o pez de Silanes,and Shleifer1999;Claessens,Djankov,and Lang2000;Faccio and Lang2002). Here again,the United States is no Porta,L´o pez de Silanes,and Shleifer(1999)show that,in seventeen of the twenty-seven countries in their sample,the deviations from the one-share one-vote norm are lower than they are in the United States;in fact,among the twelve countries they classify as having high investor protection,only Norway exhibits greater deviations.It is important to note that the most widely researched of these mechanisms, dual-class stock,has traditionally been studied in the context of insider holdings, and interpreted as a manifestation of the agency problem between owners and managers(e.g.,Partch1987;Jarrell and Poulsen1988).However,DeAngelo and DeAngelo(1985)and Nenova(2001),who look at the identity of those insiders,show that the primary beneficiaries among them are also founding families:Nenova(2001)reports that this is the case for79%of dual-class firms in her comprehensive international sample,and for95%of U.S.dual-classfirms.Relatively,Gompers,Ishii,and Metrick(2008)find that the single most important determinant of dual-class status is having a person’s name in thefirm’s name(e.g.,Wrigley or Ford),an obvious proxy for family control. These results suggest that the separation of ownership and control enabled by dual-class stock is in fact a manifestation of the second agency problem,the one between large(family)shareholders and small(nonfamily)shareholders. Third,when founders or their families use control-enhancing mechanisms to create a wedge between their cash-flow and control rights,firm value is reduced(La Porta et al.2002;Claessens et al.2002;Barontini and Caprio 2006;Villalonga and Amit2006).This article builds on thesefindings to develop and empirically test a unify-ing framework that shows how different mechanisms contribute to the wedge between the cash-flow and control rights of founding families or other control-ling shareholders.The framework reconciles the discrepancies in the way the wedge has been measured in earlier studies.In addition to dual-class stock and pyramidal ownership(the two primary mechanisms considered in earlier studies),we analyze the wedge between cash-flow and control rights created by voting agreements,whereby voting power is transferred from one shareholder to another,and disproportionate board representation—control of the board of directors in excess of voting control.3048How Are U.S.Family Firms Controlled?Further,we argue that,because some mechanisms can serve purposes other than pure control enhancement,different mechanisms should have a different impact on value.In fact,the value effect of some mechanisms may be non-negative,even when those mechanisms enhance control rights over and above cash-flow rights.We apply our wedge decomposition framework and test our hypotheses using a uniquely detailed data set about the ultimate ownership and control of large U.S.corporations.The sample comprises3006firm-year observations from 515firms between1994and2000.Our data enable us to observe six different forms of share ownership—by one sole person(or family group)or shared with another investor,and with investment and voting power,or with only one of the two powers.Through voting agreements among shareholders,this multiplicity of share ownership forms creates a divergence between cash-flow and control rights,independent of that created via dual-class stock and pyramids,which has not been captured by earlier studies.We begin by identifying which types of blockholders have control rights in excess of their cash-flow rights in U.S.corporations,andfind that this is only the case for founding families.These families are present as blockholders, officers,and/or directors in about40%of our samplefirms,and own an average of15.3%of the shares and18.8%of the votes in thosefirms.For all other types of blockholders—institutions and individuals other than founders—the wedge is negative even in nonfamilyfirms.In light of thisfinding,we focus the empirical application of our wedge decomposition framework on founder-or family-controlledfirms only.We note,however,that the framework applies more generally to any ultimate owners whose control rights exceed their cash-flow rights.Wefind that direct ownership is the most common form of founding-family ownership in the United States and accounts for62%of total family holdings of both shares and votes.Nevertheless,80%of thefirms also use some form of indirect ownership,through trusts,foundations,corporations,and limited partnerships.We alsofind that the primary source of the wedge between founding-family ownership and control in the United States is disproportionate board repre-sentation,followed in importance by dual-class stock,voting agreements,and pyramids.We explain how each of these mechanisms contributes to enhance corporate control by decomposing our wedge measures into three components: the difference(or ratio)between share ownership and vote ownership,the dif-ference between vote ownership and voting control,and the difference between voting control and board control.Finally,and consistent with our predictions,wefind that the impact of control-enhancing mechanisms onfirm value depends on the mechanism used: dual-class stock and disproportionate board representation have a negative impact,while pyramids and voting agreements have the opposite effect.3049The Review of Financial Studies/v22n82009The article is structured as follows.In the following section,we develop our framework for understanding how different mechanisms contribute to the separation between cash-flow and control rights.Section2describes the data.In Section3we document who owns large U.S.corporations and how they are owned—what investment vehicles are used by controlling shareholders, in particular by founders and their descendants.In Section4we document founding families’usage of different control-enhancing mechanisms.We also show how much control founders and their families gain through the use of each mechanism,by apportioning the wedge between their cash-flow and control rights among its different sources.Section5presents the results about how the different control-enhancing mechanisms affect value.Section6concludes the article.1.Decomposing the Wedge between Cash-Flow and Control Rights:A Unifying FrameworkPrior studies about the mechanisms used by controlling families to leverage their control rights over their cash-flow rights suggest that all of these mecha-nisms reducefirm value.However,because some mechanisms can serve pur-poses other than pure control enhancement,their net effect on value may not always be negative.Pyramidal ownership is one such mechanism.Almeida and Wolfenzon (2006)provide a rationale for the use of pyramids that differs from the agency argument in Bebchuk,Kraakman,and Triantis(2000)and others.In their model, pyramidal structures emerge as families use afirm they already control to set up a newfirm,which allows them to access the entire stock of retained earnings of thefirm they control and to share the security benefits of the newfirm with other existing shareholders of the originalfirm—a valuable feature when inter-nal funds are important and when the security benefits of the newfirm are low, as is often the case in settings with poor investor protection.Consistent with their theory,Khanna and Palepu(2000)provide evidence of internal capital market advantages to pyramidal business groups in emerging markets.In high investor protection economies like the United States,pyramids can also appear as a result of leftover blockholdings from unsuccessful takeover bids,equity carve-outs where the spun-offfirm is not yet fully divested from its parent,and equity cross-holdings between joint venture partners(Morck 2005).Allen and Phillips(2000)show that such intercorporate equity holdings are often long-lasting and value-adding,particularly when they support strategic alliances and other product-market relationships among partnerfirms.Moreover,in high investor protection economies,privately held intermedi-ate entities in pyramids may also serve as investment vehicles for sophisticated investors like private equity funds,pension funds,and other institutional in-vestors.Such investors may play a monitoring role with respect to the founding 3050How Are U.S.Family Firms Controlled?family and,unlike retail investors in publicly traded corporations,are vigilant in preventing tunneling.Another mechanism that can serve purposes other than pure control en-hancement is voting agreements whereby blockholders pool their voting rights. Several papers have pointed out the benefits of shared control among large shareholders forfirm value as a whole.Bennedsen and Wolfenzon(2000)show that founders can optimally choose an ownership structure with multiple large shareholders to force them to form coalitions to obtain control.In their model, by grouping member cashflows,coalitions internalize to a larger extent the value consequences of their actions and hence take more efficient actions than would any of their individual members.Thus,coalitions serve as a commitment device.In Gomes and Novaes(2005),the governance role of shared control stems not only from reduced ex ante incentives to appropriate private benefits at a high efficiency cost but also from ex-post bargaining problems among controlling shareholders that raise the cost of such behaviors.1Dual-class stock and disproportionate board representation,on the other hand,serve as pure control-enhancing mechanisms.Therefore,and to the ex-tent that markets understand the rationale behind some of these mechanisms, stock prices should reflect a different effect onfirm value for different mech-anisms.We specifically expect dual-class stock and disproportionate board representation to have a negative impact onfirm value,whereas pyramids and voting agreements can have a neutral or even positive impact.Because of this differential impact,it is important to understand how the various mechanisms contribute to the separation between corporate ownership and control.Two strands of research have empirically measured the wedge between a controlling shareholder’s cash-flow and control rights:dual-class stock studies(e.g.,DeAngelo and DeAngelo1985;Partch1987;Doidge2004; Gompers,Ishii,and Metrick2008)and ultimate ownership studies(La Porta, L´o pez de Silanes,and Shleifer1999;Claessens,Djankov,and Lang2000; Faccio and Lang2002).Both sets of studies use fractional equity ownership(the percentage of all shares outstanding of all classes held by the shareholder)as a measure of cash-flow rights,and voting rights as a measure of control rights.However,voting rights are computed differently in the two sets of studies.Dual-class stock studies measure voting rights as the ratio of the number of votes associated with the shares held by the shareholder to the total number of votes outstanding in the company.In companies with multiple classes of shares,different classes may entitle their holders to a different number of votes per share,and holding relatively more shares of the superior voting class is what creates the wedge between controlling owners’cash-flow and control rights.1A different viewpoint is articulated by Zwiebel(1995),who argues that blockholders in a coalition can extract partial benefits of control from smaller shareholders.Such behavior would imply an adverse effect onfirm value.3051The Review of Financial Studies/v22n82009Family’s Ownership and Control in Firm BWedgeComponentsControl MechanismCreating the WedgeTotalWedgeO(Shares owned)=32%(V–O)=16→→%Dual-Class StockV(Votes owned)=48%(C–O)=28%(C–V)=12%PyramidC(Votes controlled)=60%Figure1Example:Wedge between cash-flow and control rights due to dual-class stock and a pyramidFirm A has one class of shares.Firm B has two classes of shares with different voting rights.In the literature on ultimate ownership of corporations that starts with La Porta,L´o pez de Silanes,and Shleifer(1999),a controlling shareholder’s cash-flow and control rights may differ not just because of dual-class stock but also due to indirect ownership through one or more intermediate corporations that the shareholder also controls(a control chain).In that case,cash-flow rights are measured as the product of the ownership stakes along the control chain,and voting rights are measured as the“weakest link”(the lowest percentage)in the control chain.A simple example can help illustrate the different measures.Figure1depicts a company,firm B,which is controlled by a family through the family’s ownership stake infirm A.Firm A has one class of shares,butfirmB has two classes of shares with different voting rights.The family owns80%of all shares and votes outstanding infirm A,which,in turn,owns40%of all shares outstanding infirm B.Becausefirm B has dual-class stock,firm A is actually entitled to 60%of all votes outstanding infirm B.The family’s cash-flow rights would be measured(in both sets of studies)as the product of the family’s share ownership infirm A(80%),andfirm A’s share ownership infirm B(40%),or32%.The family’s control(or voting)rights in the dual-class stock literature would be measured as the product of the family’s share(and vote)ownership infirm A (80%),andfirm A’s vote ownership infirm B(60%),or48%.In the ultimate ownership literature,however,the family’s control rights would be measured 3052How Are U.S.Family Firms Controlled?by the“weakest link”in the control chain,i.e.,the minimum of the two voting stakes,which is60%.We note that the two measures of control rights only differ in the presence of indirect ownership,provided that all the links are lower than100%.Moreover, the rationale for using the weakest link to measure control rights requires the adoption of some minimum threshold for a shareholder to be considered in control,which in prior studies is arbitrarily set at either10%or20%.That is, under the approach followed in the ultimate ownership literature,we can only say that the family controls80%offirm A because80%is greater than any of those thresholds.If the family owned only5%of all shares outstanding in firm A,and we were using a control threshold of10%(or20%),we would not classify the family as an ultimate owner.Instead,we would say thatfirm B is controlled directly by its owner,firm A.These thresholds,combined with data limitations,such as the difficulty of tracing indirect ownership when intermediate corporations are privately held, drive the definition of pyramid used in the various studies of ultimate ownership. La Porta,L´o pez de Silanes,and Shleifer(1999),for instance,define a pyramid as an ownership structure where thefirm has an ultimate owner(at either the 10%or20%level)and there is at least one publicly traded company between thefirm and the ultimate owner in the chain of voting rights.Faccio and Lang (2002,p.372)posit that“firm Y is said to be controlled through pyramiding if it has an ultimate owner,who controls Y indirectly through another corporation that it does not wholly control”and note that“pyramiding implies a discrepancy between the ultimate owner’s ownership and control rights.”There are two other potential sources of divergence between cash-flow and control rights that have not been considered by prior studies.Thefirst is the variety of ways in which a share can be held.In the United States in particular, shares can be held in one of six ways.First,shares can be held with investment and voting power,or with only one of the two powers.Investment power,also called dispositive power,refers to the right to buy and sell the shares.Holders of shares with investment power are also typically entitled to the cash-flow rights associated with those shares,unless they disclaim beneficial ownership of the shares(and hence any pecuniary interest in them).V oting power refers to the right to exercise the voting rights associated with the shares.Shareowners have the right to cede this power to others via voting agreements.In addition, a share’s investment and voting power can be held solely by a single person or shared among two or more individuals or institutions.As a result,controlling shareholders’cash-flow and control rights may differ,even in the absence of dual-class stock and pyramidal ownership,simply because the number of shares over which they hold investment power differs from the number of shares over which they hold or share voting power.The second source of divergence between cash-flow and control rights that is not fully captured by prior studies is the fact that founding families’rights to the election of directors often entitle them to a fraction of the board that3053The Review of Financial Studies/v22n82009exceeds their fractional share ownership,and even their voting control—what we refer to as disproportionate board representation.This can be an important form of corporate control because,by having the right to elect a large fraction of the board,families can control thefirm’s management,strategic direction,and voting agenda.Indeed,earlier studies of dual-class stock like DeAngelo and DeAngelo(1985),Zingales(1995),and Gompers,Ishii,and Metrick(2008) recognize the existence of dual-class stock where the only difference in rights between classes pertains to the election of directors.We explicitly incorporate this form of control into our wedge decomposition framework by measuring the percentage of all board seats controlled by the founding family,independently of whetherfirms have dual-class stock or not.To help understand the relation between the different measures of voting control used in earlier studies and incorporate the additional sources of sepa-ration between cash-flow and control rights,we provide a unifying framework where we label and define the different concepts as follows:O=Shares owned:shares held by the family or blockholder with investment power(with or without voting power),in sole form,as a percentage of total shares outstanding.2,3V=V otes owned:votes associated with the shares held by the family or blockholder with voting power(with or without investment power),in sole form,as a percentage of total votes outstanding.C=V otes controlled:votes associated with the shares held by the family or blockholder with voting power,in sole or shared form,as a percentage of total votes outstanding,plus any additional voting control resulting from pyramidal ownership(measured by the weakest link in the chain of control). B=Board seats controlled:percentage of all board seats controlled by the family or blockholder.Using this notation,we can define the wedge between cash-flow and voting control rights more precisely as the difference(or ratio)between C and O, which is the wedge measure used in the ultimate ownership literature,and decompose it into two additive parts:the difference(or ratio)between V and O(which is the wedge measure used in the dual-class stock literature),and the 2If family shareholders are aggregated into one unit,as we do in this study,“sole form”also includes those shares or votes that are shared within the family or with family representatives,such as co-trustees.3We exclude shared investment power from the definition of share ownership because there are only two companies where wefind shared investment power between family and nonfamily shareholders:Ralston Purina Company and Anixter International.In both cases we attribute50%of the investment power to the family shareholder(s). In Ralston Purina,brothers Donald Jr.and William Danforth share investment and voting power over a fraction of their shares with an institution that changes over the years(first Boatmen’s Bancshares,then Nation’s Bank, and later Bank of America).In Anixter,a large fraction of the shares attributed to founder Samuel Zell in the proxy are held by three limited partnerships.The general partners are the Samuel Zell Revocable Trust and the Robert H.and B.Ann Lurie Trust,of which Ann Lurie,the widow of cofounder Robert Lurie,is a trustee.A change in the company’s ownership structure in1998reveals that Zell and Lurie were indeed50/50partners. 3054How Are U.S.Family Firms Controlled?Family’s Ownershipand Control in Firm CWedge Components Control Mechanism Creating the Wedge Total Wedge O (Shares owned)=32%(V –O)=16%Dual-Class Stock V (Votes owned)=48%(C –O)=28%(C –V)=12%Voting AgreementC (Votes controlled)=60%→→Figure 2Example:Wedge between cash-flow and control rights due to dual-class stock and a voting agreement difference (or ratio)between C and V :Wedge measured as difference:(C −O )=(V −O )+(C −V )(1)Wedge measured as ratio:C /O =V /O ×C /V (2)Furthermore,we include director election rights as an additional form of cor-porate control over and above voting control,by measuring the wedge between B and C .Thus,the total wedge can be defined as the gap between B and O ,and decomposed as follows:Wedge measured as difference:(B −O )=(V −O )+(C −V )+(B −C )(3)Wedge measured as ratio:B /O =V /O ×C /V ×B /C .(4)In this framework,different control-enhancing mechanisms contribute to dif-ferent components of the total wedge:dual-class stock is responsible for the (V −O )wedge,pyramids and voting agreements are responsible for the (C −V )wedge,and disproportionate board representation is responsible for the (B −C )wedge.In the example of Figure 1,the total wedge (measured as a difference)is (C −O )=60%−32%=28%,which is the sum of (V −O )=48%−32%=16%wedge attributable to dual-class stock,and (C −V )=60%−48%=12%wedge attributable to the pyramid.Figure 2shows how a similar effect can be attained by combining dual-class stock with a voting agreement.As in the previous example,O =32%,V =48%,C =60%,and the wedges are the same as before,but in this case there3055The Review of Financial Studies/v22n82009is no pyramid.Instead,the12%(C−V)wedge is now attributable to the fact that a nonfamily shareholder has ceded to the founding family the voting power over the12%offirm C’s shares that he or she owns.In either case,the founding family’s overall control offirm B(in thefirst example)orfirm C(in the second example)will be further enhanced if the family is allowed to elect,for instance,75%of the board,instead of the32% that its share ownership would entitle it to,or the60%that its voting control would entitle it to.In that case,the total wedge would be(B−O)=75%−32%=43%,and the additional wedge created by the family’s disproportionate board representation would be(B−C)=75%−60%=15%.We note that the wedge decomposition framework we propose is additive by construction.An alternative would be to measure the effect of each mechanism in isolation from all others and allow for interaction effects among the dif-ferent mechanisms,which could then be apportioned between the interacting mechanisms in proportion to their independent contributions.We call this al-ternative the multiplicative approach.For instance,going back to Figure1,one could compute the pure effect of the pyramid had there not been any dual-class shares,which would be the difference between(a)the weakest link between 80%and40%,or40%,and(b)the cash-flow rights of32%,which is8%,half the size of the(V−O)wedge attributable to dual-class stock(16%).The12% difference between C and V could be considered as an interaction effect,or apportioned between the isolated effects of dual-class stock and pyramids on a pro-rata basis(2/3and1/3,respectively),which would increase the portion of the wedge attributable to dual-class stock to24%(=16%+8%),and decrease the portion of the wedge attributable to dual-class stock to4%.As this example illustrates,relative to the multiplicative approach,the addi-tive approach underestimates the contribution of those mechanisms that appear earlier in our framework(dual-class stock is thefirst to appear),and overesti-mates the contribution of mechanisms that appear later(disproportionate board representation is the last).The advantage of the additive approach is that it is more intuitive to comprehend and apply.Therefore,in the empirical analysis that follows,we use the additive version of our framework to measure the separation between cash-flow and control(and director election)rights in U.S.founder-or family-controlledfirms,apportion it among its components,and examine the impact of each mechanism onfirm value.However,the results are not sensitive to the use of one approach or another.2.Data2.1Database constructionOur data set is a panel of62,431shareholder-firm-year observations,aggregated into3006firm-year observations of515Fortune500firms during the period 1994–2000.The sample includes all thefirms that were in the Fortune500 in any of these years;have Compustat data on sales,assets,and market value 3056。

多个大股东与公司价值

多个大股东与公司价值

Multiple large shareholders and firm valueBenjamin Maury a ,Anete Pajusteb,*aDepartment of Finance and Statistics,Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration,P.O.Box 479,Helsinki 00101,Finland b Department of Finance,Stockholm School of Economics,P.O.Box 6501,Stockholm S-11383,SwedenReceived 24March 2003;accepted 8July 2004Available online 22September 2004AbstractThis paper investigates the effects of having multiple large shareholders on the valuation of fiing data on Finnish listed firms,we show,consistent with our model,that a more equal distribution of votes among large blockholders has a positive effect on firm value.This result is particularly strong in family-controlled firms suggesting that families (which typically have managerial or board representation)are more prone to private benefit extraction if they are not monitored by another strong blockholder.We also show that the relation between multiple blockholders and firm value is significantly affected by the identity of these blockholders.Ó2004Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.JEL classification:G3;G32Keywords:Corporate governance;Ownership structure;Multiple blockholders;Firm value1.IntroductionRecent empirical work has shown that ownership is typically concentrated in the hands of a small number of large shareholders (e.g.,La Porta et al.,1999;Barca and Becht,2001).This evidence has shifted the focus from the traditional conflict of 0378-4266/$-see front matter Ó2004Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jbankfin.2004.07.002*Corresponding author.Tel.:+3716186301;fax:+468312327.E-mail address:anete.pajuste@hhs.se (A.Pajuste).Journal of Banking &Finance 29(2005)1813–1834/locate/jbf1814 B.Maury,A.Pajuste/Journal of Banking&Finance29(2005)1813–1834interest between managers and dispersed shareholders(Berle and Means,1932)to-wards an equally important agency conflict between large controlling shareholders and minority shareholders.On the one hand,large shareholders can benefit minority shareholders by monitoring managers(Shleifer and Vishny,1986,1997).On the other hand,large shareholders can be harmful if they pursue private goals that differ from profit maximization or if they reduce valuable managerial incentives(Shleifer and Vishny,1997;Burkart et al.,1997).In this paper,we address a different question: In which way do multiple large shareholders,as opposed to just one large share-holder,benefit or harm minority shareholders?Outside the United States,the presence of several large shareholders1with sub-stantial blocks of shares is common(Barca and Becht,2001).Data on5232Euro-pean companies collected by Faccio and Lang(2002)show that39%offirms have at least two blockholders that hold at least10%of the voting rights,and16%offirms have at least three blockholders.Therefore,it is important to study the allocation of control between multiple large shareholders,as well as its impact onfirm perform-ance.The theoretical literature provides models in which multiple blockholders com-pete for control(Bloch and Hege,2001),monitor the controlling shareholder (Winton,1993;Pagano and Ro¨ell,1998;Bolton and Von Thaden,1998),and form controlling coalitions to share private benefits(Zwiebel,1995;Pagano and Ro¨ell, 1998;Bennedsen and Wolfenzon,2000;Gomes and Novaes,2001).Empirical evidence on the effect of multiple large shareholders onfirm perform-ance has been limited.For Italy,Volpin(2002)provides evidence that valuation is higher when control is to some extent contestable as in the case in which a voting syndicate controls thefirm.Lehman and Weigand(2000)report that the presence of a strong second largest shareholder enhances profitability in German listed com-panies.Faccio et al.(2001)test the effect of multiple large shareholders on dividends. Theyfind that the presence of multiple large shareholders dampens expropriation in Europe(due to monitoring),but exacerbates it in Asia(due to collusion).Most of these empirical studies focus on the simple presence of multiple blockholders,and not on the characteristics of individual blockholders.We present a simple model in which multiple blockholders can have two different roles infirms.On the one hand,by holding a substantial voting block,a blockholder has the power and the incentives to monitor the largest shareholder and therefore the ability to reduce profit diversion.On the other hand,the blockholder can form a con-trolling coalition with other blockholders and share the diverted profit.One of the key contributions of this paper is the derivation of conditions under which the diver-sion of profits can be higher infirms with multiple blockholders than infirms with a single blockholder.Related to thefirst role,we hypothesize thatfirm value is posi-tively affected by the ability to challenge the largest block,i.e.,by contestability.Re-lated to the second role,we hypothesize thatfirm value is negatively affected by the presence of blockholders,who,by colluding,can increase the efficiency of private benefit extraction.1In this paper,terms large shareholder and blockholder are used interchangeably as synonyms.B.Maury,A.Pajuste/Journal of Banking&Finance29(2005)1813–18341815Using a sample of136non-financial Finnish listed companies that have at least one large shareholder with more than or equal to10%of the votes,wefind that the contestability of the largest shareholderÕs voting power(using different measures) has a positive effect onfirm value,as measured by TobinÕs Q.The data show that firm value increases when the voting power is distributed more equally.The contest-ability of control power is particularly important in family-controlledfirms.As fam-ilies typically have managerial or board representation,this result suggests thatfirm value can decrease if the outsidersÕability to monitor the insiders is low.Interestingly,wefind that a higher voting stake by another family is negatively re-lated tofirm value in family-controlledfirms,whereas a higher voting stake held by another non-family owner,typically afinancial institution,is positively related to firm value in family-controlledfirms.These results suggest that the incentives to col-lude with the largest shareholder or to monitor the largest shareholder are signifi-cantly affected by the type of the blockholder.Consistent with our model,we explain this result by suggesting that some coalitions(e.g.,two families)can make profit diversion easier.Meanwhile in other coalitions,expropriation can be more difficult.The paper proceeds as follows.Section2presents a model on the effects of mul-tiple large shareholders onfirm value,and derives testable hypotheses.Section3de-scribes the data set and variables.Section4presents regression results.Section5 offers robustness checks,and Section6concludes.2.Multiple blockholders andfirm value:A simple modelPrevious research shows that the presence of large shareholders,who can monitor the actions of the manager,can benefit minority shareholders(e.g.,Shleifer and Vishny,1986).Following this reasoning,multiple large shareholders can reduce profit diversion by monitoring the controlling shareholder(Pagano and Ro¨ell, 1998).The previous theoretical models,however,emphasize the simple presence of multiple blocks.In our model,we show how the identity and relative size of the blockholders can affect the level of private benefit extraction.In particular,we pre-sent the conditions under which the presence of another block can harm minority investors.We follow the model set-up in La Porta et al.(2002)and assume that the diversion of profits is inefficient–the controlling coalition receives sRIÀc(s,•)RI,where RI is thefirmÕs profit(I is the amount of cash invested with the gross rate of return R), c(s,•)is the cost-of-theft function,i.e.,the share of profit that is wasted when s is diverted.2We assume that c s>0and c ss>0,i.e.that the marginal cost of stealing is positive,and the marginal cost of stealing rises as more is stolen.Firm valuation is measured by Q=(1Às)R.2As in La Porta et al.(2002),we assume that the ownership structure has been chosen in the past. Alternatively,the ownership structure can be endogenized,as,for example,in Stulz(1988)or Shleifer and Wolfenzon(2002).1816 B.Maury,A.Pajuste/Journal of Banking&Finance29(2005)1813–1834 We assume that the largest blockholder is the manager,which is always included in the controlling coalition.3Infirms with professional managers,we still assume that the largest blockholder has the power to influence managerial decision-making, as well as tools to extract private benefits at the expense of minority shareholders.4 In the data,we observe that when the largest shareholder lacks managerial represen-tation,managers and board members themselves have very low ownership and con-trol stakes.Therefore,the aggregate holdings of top executives are not likely to alter the control power of the blockholders.Under these assumptions,the controlling coalition maximizesV C¼a nð1Àð1ÀkÞsÞRIþð1ÀkÞsRIÀcðs; ÞRI;ð1Þwhere a n is the sum of the cash-flow stakes held by the coalition partners,and k is the probability to recover the diverted profits,which we call the contestability of the con-trolling coalitionÕs power.The contestability increases with the voting power of the blockholders outside the coalition(v out).We assume that there is no additional cost to monitoring,i.e.,just by having a large minority stake(more than10%of the shares),the shareholder can order,for example,an audit,and,in so doing,the di-verted profits will be returned to thefirm with probability k.Thefirst term in(1) is the share of after-theft cashflows(or dividends),and the remaining two terms are the benefits from expropriation.The diverted profit is shared among coalition partners through efficient bargaining.5Thefirst order condition is given by¼Àð1ÀkÞa nþð1ÀkÞÀc sðs; Þ¼0;ð2ÞV Cswhich can be rewritten asc sðs; Þ¼ð1Àa nÞð1ÀkÞ:ð3ÞThe optimal s*is determined from Eq.(3).We assume that the parameters in the cost-of-theft function are such that all the optimal private benefits(s*)are within the limits sÃ2½0;^s ,where^s is the maximum fraction of the profits that can be diverted.We can now derive testable hypotheses for the ownership structures with multiple blockholders.First,assume that the marginal cost of stealing depends only on the number of coalition partners.In particular,assume that the marginal cost of stealing is the same or higher in the multiple blockholder case as compared to the one block-holder case.6In this case,the simple presence of multiple blocks reduces the private3This assumption stems from the fact that the largest block typically has higher voting power than the rest of the blocks combined in our sample.4In this paper,we focus on the agency problem between large shareholders and minority shareholders, disregarding the traditional principal–agent problem between professional managers and shareholders.5The relative distribution of diverted profits has no effect on the hypotheses tested in this paper. Therefore,this discussion,as well as the derivation of feasibility and sustainability conditions for the coalition formation is not reported but is available from the authors upon request.6The marginal cost of stealing can increase with the number of coalition members if it becomes harder to keep the diversion of profits secret with several partners.benefit extraction (see Fig.1A).For example,assume that the cost-of-theft function only depends on the diverted profit,s ,irrespective of the coalition structure.By dif-ferentiating the first order condition with respect to k (Eq.(4))and a n (Eq.(5)),and rearranging terms,we getd s Ãd k ¼À1Àa n c ss ðs ; Þ<0;ð4Þd s Ãd a n ¼Àð1Àk Þc ss ðs ; Þ<0:ð5ÞUnder current assumptions,the private benefits (s *)are strictly lower when there is more than one blockholder.If the controlling coalition consists of only the largest shareholder,a n =a 1,then private benefits are lower because the remaining block-holders have some monitoring power,k >0.If,in turn,the controlling coalition sup-presses the remaining contestability,i.e.,k =0,then private benefits are lower because the controlling coalition internalizes a larger fraction of cash-flow rights than in the single blockholder case,a n >a 1.The latter result is consistent with the alignment effect described by Bennedsen and Wolfenzon (2000).This gives us the first testable hypothesis:Hypothesis 1.An increase in the contestability of the controlling coalition Õs power should increase firm value.The assumption that the marginal cost of stealing increases with the number of coalition partners implies that the simple presence of multiple blockholders should have a positive effect on firm value.This is inconsistent with several previous studies (e.g.,Faccio et al.,2001)that find rather mixed results on the effect of the presence ofB.Maury,A.Pajuste /Journal of Banking &Finance 29(2005)1813–18341817multiple blockholders.In this paper,we argue that certain coalitions can actually re-duce the marginal cost of stealing either by(i)increasing the voting power of the coa-lition,or(ii)adding extra knowledge and resources for hiding the diversion of profits.For these two reasons,from now on,assume that the marginal cost of steal-ing is lower in the multiple blockholder case as compared to the one blockholder case;see Fig.1B.Higher voting power of the coalition may allow for more unanimous decision making and better hiding of profit diversion.Following this reasoning,we can ex-press the cost-of-theft function as c(s,v in),where v in is the total voting power of the coalition.We assume that c sv<0,i.e.the marginal cost of stealing decreases with the voting power of the coalition.Recall that k depends on the voting power of the blockholders outside the controlling coalition.This means that if a blockholder with higher voting power is added to the controlling coalition,the remaining contestabil-ity is lower than if a blockholder with lower voting power joins the coalition,d k/ d v in<0.Differentiating Eq.(3)with respect to v in,and rearranging terms,we getd sÃd v in ¼Àð1Àa nÞd kd v inÀc svc ss>0:ð6ÞThefirst term in the nominator of Eq.(6)shows that an increase in v in has an adverse effect on private benefits extraction because it reduces the remaining contestability(k decreases).The second term in the nominator shows that private benefits increase,as v in increases,because the marginal cost of stealing decreases due to higher voting power in the hands of the controlling coalition(c sv<0).This result suggests that the private benefits can be higher with multiple blockholders,if the negative effect of the added voting power(Eq.(6))is higher than the positive effect of the added cash-flow rights(Eq.(5));see Fig.1B.Results(5)and(6)combined,give us the sec-ond testable hypothesis:Hypothesis2.Firms with higher voting power and lower cash-flow rights held by the controlling coalition should have lowerfirm value.Hypothesis2suggests that high voting power gives discretion in private benefit extraction(low contestability),whereas low cash-flow ownership reduces the incen-tive effect.7The marginal cost of stealing can decrease with multiple blockholders if certain type of blockholders can add extra knowledge and resources for hiding the diversion of profits.We can express the cost-of-theft function as c(s,a),where a is the block-holderÕs ability to reduce the marginal cost of stealing,and hence,c sa<0.What kind of blockholders are capable of reducing the marginal cost of private benefit extrac-7This is consistent with both theoretical papers(Grossman and Hart,1988;Harris and Raviv,1988; Bennedsen and Wolfenzon,2000)and empirical work(La Porta et al.,2002;Claessens et al.,2002; Cronqvist and Nilsson,2003)showing that the negative effect of large shareholders is magnified if there is a substantial departure from one share–one vote.1818 B.Maury,A.Pajuste/Journal of Banking&Finance29(2005)1813–1834tion?We propose that the marginal cost of private benefit extraction is likely to be higher if the controlling coalition includes afinancial institution as compared to,for example,a family.Since the opportunity cost of getting caught for diverting the firmÕs proceeds presumably is higher forfinancial institutions that are supervised by regulatory authorities,diversion is less likely to be an attractive alternative.It is easier for two families to form a coalition and extract private benefits within the legal bounds,than for a family and,for example,a fund manager.The latter case is more likely to be a violation of law.Differentiating Eq.(3)with respect to a,and rearranging terms,we getd sÃd a ¼Àc sac ss>0:ð7ÞThis result suggests that the private benefits can be higher with multiple blockholders if the negative effect of the added ability to hide profits(Eq.(7))is higher than the positive incentive effect from higher cash-flow stake(Eq.(5)).We can now state thefinal testable hypothesis:Hypothesis3.Firm value should be lower if the controlling coalition is formed by blockholders that can jointly reduce the marginal cost of stealing.Related to Hypothesis3,the model could also be tested in a cross-country setting. If a certain institutional environment can reduce the marginal cost of stealing by coa-litions consisting of multiple blockholders,the model can explain differences in profit diversion among countries.For example,the model can explain the results in Faccio et al.(2001)suggesting that other large shareholders in Asian companies typically are long-standing allies of the largest shareholder(i.e.,they could reduce the marginal cost of stealing),while other large shareholders in Europe tend to monitor the largest shareholder.3.Data3.1.SampleWe collect data on ownership structures in Finnish listed companies during1993–2000.The total number offirm-year observations with ownership data is804.From the initial sample,we exclude banks and insurance companies.Since the focus of the paper is on the role of blockholders,we also excludefirm-years that do not have any blockholder with at least10%of the votes.As a result,our unbalanced panel used in the analyses consists of136firms and a total of612observations over the eight-year period.The main source for ownership data is the yearbook Po¨rssitieto.The book reports the cash-flow ownership and votes of the20largest shareholders ranked by owner-ship.Where the data are inadequate in the book,we usefirmsÕannual reports.We collect data on equity,votes,and the identity(type)of the three largest owners inB.Maury,A.Pajuste/Journal of Banking&Finance29(2005)1813–183418191820 B.Maury,A.Pajuste/Journal of Banking&Finance29(2005)1813–1834eachfirm.We classify the shareholders into the following types:family,corporation,financial institution,state,and other.Ownership by families is aggregated to include family members with the same surname.Families are assumed to own and vote col-lectively.Po¨rssitieto sums up the ownership offinancialfirms belonging to various banking and insurance groups,although these do not legally form a group.We use the same group classification.We have tried to identify the ultimate owners in Finnish listed companies.We in-clude indirect holdings through privatefirms by private persons when they are re-ported among the20largest shareholders.If a corporation orfinancial institution owns a company in our sample,we check further to see if it has a majority owner and report the ultimate ownerÕs type,if there is one.If the owner is a private corpo-ration and none of the insiders(board members and managers)have a controlling stake in it,we report this owner type as a corporation.The ownership data are at the end of thefinancial year.The fact that all ownership data are not from exactly the same date does not cause a problem,because the ownership structures tend to be stable in the vast majority offirms over the studied period.3.2.Variable descriptionsThe main proxy forfirm valuation(the Q of the model)is TobinÕs Q,which is de-fined as the market value of assets divided by the replacement cost of assets.To calcu-late the market value of assets,we take the sum of the market value of outstanding shares and the book value of debt.If afirm has more than one share class listed,we sum the market values of the different share classes.To estimate the market value of an unlisted share class,we use the price of the listed share class times the number of unlisted shares to get an implied value of the unlisted share class.8Our estimate of the denominator of TobinÕs Q,the replacement value of thefirmÕs assets,is the book value of total assets.To reduce the impact of extreme values,we censor the TobinÕs Q variable at the5th and95th percentiles,setting extreme values to the5th and95th per-centile values,respectively.The market value of equity,the book value of assets and all other accounting data for the control variables come from Datastream.If thefirm is not covered by Datastream,we add the accounting data from available annual reports.Hypothesis1suggested thatfirm valuation increases with the contestability of the largest shareholderÕs power.We use several proxies for the contestability of power, the k from the model.Thefirst is the Herfindahl index(HI_differences)measured by the sum of squares of the differences between thefirst and the second largest voting stakes,and the second and the third largest voting stakes,(Votes1ÀVotes2)2+(Votes2ÀVotes3)2.The second measure,called HI_concentration,is a proxy for the total concentration of the blockholdersÕvoting power.HI_concentra-tion is calculated as the sum of squares of the three largest voting stakes, 8One can argue that this estimation method could bias our measure of TobinÕs Q if there is a large difference in the prices of high and low voting shares(the voting premium).This is unlikely to be a problem in our data,because the voting premiums during the sample period generally have been low(see also Nenova,2003).B.Maury,A.Pajuste/Journal of Banking&Finance29(2005)1813–18341821 (Votes1)2+(Votes2)2+(Votes3)2.Both Herfindahl measures are transformed into logarithms to control for skewness,9and they are expected to have a negative rela-tion tofirm value.10Another measure of contestability used in our study is the Shapley value,which is the probability that a particular shareholder is pivotal in forming a majority coali-tion(more than50%of the votes).To calculate the Shapley value,the three largest blockholders are treated as individual players,while the rest are treated as an ‘‘ocean’’,for whom the Shapley value is the continuous version for oceanic games (Milnor and Shapley,1978).If the largest block holds more than50%of the votes, the Shapley value is equal to one.If the largest block does not hold a majority,the contestability of the largest shareholderÕs power increases with lower Shapley values. Hence,the relation between the Shapley value of the largest shareholder andfirm va-lue is expected to be negative.Although the Herfindahl indices and the Shapley value have more empirical ap-peal because they are continuous measures,we also introduce a dummy variable, called High contestability dummy,which takes into account the important legal minority shareholder rights assigned to shareholders with at least10%of shares, such as,for example,the right to request an extraordinary general meeting or ap-point an additional auditor.The High contestability dummy takes a value of one if the two largest shareholders cannot form a majority,and there is at least one more blockholder(with10%of the votes).This variable captures situations in which even with two blockholders forming a coalition,there is a blockholder who can contest the power of the controlling coalition.The relation between the High contestability dummy andfirm value is expected to be positive.Hypothesis2suggested thatfirm valuation decreases with a higher wedge between the voting power and the equity ownership.In particular,we want to disentangle the incentive effect associated with cash-flow rights from the entrenchment effect associ-ated with having control rights in excess of cash-flow ownership.We use the equity stake of the largest shareholder,to measure the incentive effect,and control-to-own-ership ratio,to measure the entrenchment effect that can arise when the largest share-holder has less equity participation than control.Four additional variables are introduced to control for factors that have been shown to have an impact on TobinÕs Q.The control variables includefirm size,finan-cial leverage,sales growth,and asset tangibility.Firm size is measured by the loga-rithm of total assets,and is expected to have a negative effect onfirm value as larger firms are,presumably,in a more mature stage of their life cycle.Leverage is meas-ured by the book value of all long-term liabilities divided by total assets.Leverage can play a disciplinary role by limiting the free cashflow at hand,and hence reduce profit diversion.However,leverage can also have a negative effect if it increases the risk offinancial distress and bankruptcy.Hence,we do not have a clear prediction on 9If HI_differences is zero,the log(HI_differences)is set equal to the lowest value of log(HI_differences) among all other observations.There is only one such case.10The results are qualitatively the same if we do not make the logarithmic transformations of the Herfindahl indices before including them in the regressions.1822 B.Maury,A.Pajuste/Journal of Banking&Finance29(2005)1813–1834the relation between leverage andfirm value.Sales growth is measured by the per-centage change in sales year-on-year.Since faster growing companies tend to have higher valuations,we expect a positive relation between sales growth andfirm value. Asset tangibility is the ratio of tangible assets divided by total assets.Firms with lower asset tangibility presumably have a higher proportion of intangible assets (e.g.,human capital)generating the cash-flows.Therefore,we expect a negative relation between asset tangibility and TobinÕs Q.We cap the leverage and sales growth variables at the5th and95th percentiles to reduce the weight of outliers.The regressions also include year dummies to account for time effects,and indus-try dummies to account for effects due to the nature offirmÕs industry.We follow the Helsinki Stock exchange classification of industry groups,and construct seven indus-try dummies:Food,Industry,Investment,Media,Telecommunications,Trade,and Other.3.3.Descriptive statisticsPanel A of Table1presents summary statistics for variables used in this study. The average TobinÕs Q across allfirm-years is1.39.The largest shareholder has on average42.3%of the voting rights and33.5%of the cash-flow rights.The average voting stakes of the second and third largest shareholders are11.6%and5.9%, respectively.The control-to-ownership ratio is the highest for the largest share-holder(1.36).The second largest shareholder has the average control-to-ownership ratio of1.24,and the third largest shareholder1.09.The ownership and control variables tend to be highly correlated,therefore,to avoid problems with multicol-linearity,the control contestability variables have to be estimated in separate regressions.The distribution of votes and cash-flow rights held by the largest shareholder in Finnish listed companies is displayed in Panel B of Table1.Family is the most com-mon ownership type among the largest shareholders(36.3%of total).Further clas-sification shows that if a family is the largest shareholder,it almost always has a representative among managers or board members.The second largest ownership category is corporations,controlling26.3%of thefirms.Financial institutions con-trol12.6%of thefirms but with smaller average stakes.The(unreported)distribution of ownership types among the second and third largest shareholders reveals that financial institutions dominate here,40.2%of the second largest shareholders and 50.3%of the third largest shareholders arefinancial institutions.To evaluate the stability of the ownership structures,we examine(though do not report in a table)the frequency distribution of changes in the voting power by the largest owners.Although the annual absolute change in control rights by the largest shareholder is within5%in79%of thefirm-years,the absolute change is greater than 10%in almost10%of thefirm-years.The percent offirm-years in which the absolute change in the second and third largest shareholderÕs voting power is within5% amounts to91%and96%,respectively.Thus,the variation in blockholdersÕstakes over time typically is low,but some changes do occur,particularly with the largest block.。

Large shareholders and accounting research

Large shareholders and accounting research

Large shareholders and accounting research qOle-Kristian HopeUniversity of Toronto,Rotman School of Management,CanadaA R T I C L E I N F O Article history:Received 5April 2012Accepted 11July 2012Available online 29January 2013JEL classification:G30G32G38M20M41Keywords:Large shareholdersAgency costsControlling ownersMinority ownersPrivate firmsInternational A B S T R A C TLarge shareholders are a potentially very important element of firms’corpo-rate governance system.Whereas analytical research is typically vague on who these large shareholders are,in practice there are important variations in the types of large owners (and the different types of large owners could play very different governance roles).After briefly reviewing the standard agency cost arguments,in this article I emphasize the heterogeneity of concentrated ownership and in particular focus on the roles of families,institutions,govern-ments,and employee ownership.I also discuss the role of large shareholders in private (i.e.,unlisted)firms,where ownership tends to be more concentrated than in publicly traded firms.Finally,I briefly discuss variations in ownership structures across selected countries.Ó2013China Journal of Accounting Research.Founded by Sun Yat-sen University and City University of Hong Kong.Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.1.IntroductionThis article is based on my keynote address at the 2012CJAR Special Issue Symposium at CEIBS in Shang-hai.The topic of the conference was “large shareholders ”and I was honored to be given the opportunity to1755-3091/$-see front matter Ó2013China Journal of Accounting Research.Founded by Sun Yat-sen University and City University of Hong Kong.Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved./10.1016/j.cjar.2012.12.002qThis article has been prepared for the China Journal of Accounting Research and forms the basis for my CJAR Special Issue Symposium presentation (March 30,2012).I appreciate useful comments from Heather Li and acknowledge the financial support of the Deloitte Professorship.4O.-K.Hope/China Journal of Accounting Research6(2013)3–20make some comments on how large shareholders are important for(accounting)research.I should hasten to say that there are several well-cited survey studies on corporate governance in accounting,economics,finance, and management.Thus,in this paper I will not attempt a complete survey on the literature on large sharehold-ers.Instead,I have decided to focus on one particular aspect–the heterogeneity of large shareholders.We tell our PhD students that they should base their research on theory to the extent possible.At least in financial accounting the“theory”that is referred to is often analytical economics-based research.At the Rot-man School we have the same emphasis on theory and I am personally a strong believer in anchoring your work in theory.However,most analytical models are vague(to put it mildly)when describing exactly who the large shareholders are and how they act.As this article will highlight,there is in fact rather considerable diversity in the types of large shareholders we observe,and it is very likely that these may have different effects on outcomes of interest to accounting researchers.Hence the reader can consider this article also as a call for “attention to the context”in which the study is conducted.For example,I would encourage“case-based”type studies that delve deeper into one particular form of large shareholder,such as state-owned enterprises in China.I would like to offer three brief caveats.First,as already mentioned there are other,more comprehensive surveys on corporate governance issues and I would recommend that readers consult these if relevant.Second, although I consider several different types of large shareholders I could clearly have included additional types (e.g.,the effect of foreign shareholders).Finally,there are important measurement issues in defining large shareholders(using cut-offs;multiple large owners;concentration ratios;ownership percentage versus voting rights;considering potential nonlinearities;organizational form;etc.).Section2provides a brief review of the classic Jensen and Meckling(1976)arguments and discusses both vertical and horizontal agency costs.It also discusses the role of the second-largest shareholders and examines how large shareholders exercise their monitoring in practice.Section3focuses on who the large shareholders are.The chapter considers the roles of families,institutions,governments,and employee rge shareholders are particularly prominent in private(i.e.,unlisted)firms,and Section4summarizes relevant research on these economically very importantfirms.Section5contains a discussion of variations across selected countries in the types of dominating ownership,and Section6concludes.2.Overview of large shareholders and agency costs2.1.Brief review of Jensen and Meckling(1976)As this conference is motivated to a large extent by Jensen and Meckling(1976),it is worthwhile tofirst briefly revisit and review their seminal study.1Jensen and Meckling define an agency relationship as a contract under which one or more persons(the principal(s))engage another person(the agent)to perform some service on their behalf which involves delegating some decision making authority to the agent.If both parties are util-ity maximizers there is good reason to believe that the agent will not always act in the best interests of the principal.The principal can limit divergences from his interest by establishing appropriate incentives for the agent and by incurring monitoring costs designed to limit the value-reducing activities of the agent.2 If a wholly ownedfirm is managed by the owner,he will make decisions which maximize his utility.This situation is of course unusual other than for the smallest privatefirms and by definition not observed in pub-licly traded companies.In such cases,Jensen and Meckling argue that agency costs will be generated by the divergence between his interest and those of the outside shareholders,as he will then bear only a fraction of the costs of any non-pecuniary benefits he takes out in maximizing his own utility.Put differently,as the owner–manager’s fraction of the equity falls,his fractional claim on the outcomes falls and this will tend to encourage him to appropriate larger amounts of the corporate resources in the form of perquisites.This also makes it 1Jensen and Meckling’s article was in part motivated by the observation by Adam Smith(1776)that“The directors of such[joint-stock] companies,however,being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own,it cannot be well expected,that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own... Negligence and profusion,therefore,must always prevail,more or less,in the management of the affairs of such a company.”2In some situations it will pay the agent to expend resources to guarantee that he will not take certain actions which would harm the principal or to ensure that the principal will be compensated if he does take such actions(referred to as“bonding”).O.-K.Hope/China Journal of Accounting Research6(2013)3–205desirable for the minority shareholders to expend more resources in monitoring his behavior.3Important for us in accounting,this is clearly one of the reasons for the demand for accounting-related information.In fact, the genesis of accounting was in the“stewardship role”it can play in monitoring agents(see,e.g.,Gjesdal, 1981for a nice discussion).It is only more recently that the“valuation role”of accounting information has gained in prominence(and may well be the dominating role today).Related to the stewardship role(or governance)role of accounting,Jensen and Meckling argue that their theory can explain“why accounting reports would be provided voluntarily to creditors and stockholders,and why independent auditors would be engaged by management to testify to the accuracy and correctness of such reports.”2.2.More on the role of ownership concentration(or importance of large shareholders)There are two common approaches to corporate governance throughout most of the world(e.g.,Shleifer and Vishny,1997).First,investors’rights are protected to varying degrees across the world through the legal process and legal environment.The second major approach,and the focus of this article,is ownership by large investors.Research provides evidence that managers,when left unmonitored,are more likely to manage earnings, commit fraud,or make suboptimal investment decisions(e.g.,Biddle and Hilary,2006;Hope and Thomas, 2008).Thus,shareholder monitoring is an important mechanism by which agency costs can be reduced.How-ever,while all shareholders have the responsibility to monitor managerial activities,the benefits of doing so by any individual shareholder are proportional to the percentage of shares owned(Jensen and Meckling,1976; Shleifer and Vishny,1997).Put another way,when ownership is widely dispersed,it is economically less fea-sible for any individual shareholder to incur significant monitoring costs,because she will receive only a small portion of benefits.Similarly,when ownership is dispersed,it is harder for shareholders to monitor managerial actions.Thus,as the percentage of ownership by individual shareholders increases(i.e.,concentration increases), the more willing individual shareholders are to incur necessary monitoring costs.That is,when ownership is limited to one or a few individuals,it is easier and more efficient for those individuals to directly monitor managerial actions.This is the typical“vertical agency cost”argument(i.e.,conflicts between managers and owners)and leads to the general prediction that agency costs are expected to be lower as ownership concen-tration increases.4Potential manager–owner conflicts are not the only relevant issues.Horizontal agency costs relate to how large shareholders can decrease afirm’s value through extracting private benefit from the minority sharehold-ers(e.g.,La Porta et al.,1999).Morck et al.(1988)argue that increased ownership concentration may entrench managers,as they are increasingly less subject to governance by boards of directors and to discipline by the market for corporate control.Controlling shareholders may either engage in outright expropriation from self-dealing transactions or exercise de facto expropriation through the pursuit of objectives that are not profit-maximizing in return for personal utilities.These controlling shareholders may attempt to hide these activities from other stakeholders(e.g.,minority shareholders and creditors)by manipulating reported perfor-mance(an issue of obvious interest to accountants).In other words,a controlling owner can increase agency costs via the positive association with private benefits of control(e.g.,Hope et al.,2012a).To summarize the discussion,the presence of a controlling owner represents forces that work in opposite directions.For a researcher,this is both a challenge and an opportunity.It is an opportunity if the researcher is able to specify ex ante which set of agency costs is likely to be most significant.For example,in countries with less legal protection of the minority shareholders the main agency problem often exists between control-ling shareholders and minority shareholders.3Jensen and Meckling consider the term monitoring to include more than just measuring or observing the behavior of the agent.It includes efforts on the part of the principal to“control”the behavior of the agent through budget restrictions,compensation policies, operating rules,etc.4Furthermore,controlling shareholders could enable a long investment horizon which allows the building of strong relationships between thefirms and outside providers of capital(Ellul et al.,2009).In fact,a controlling shareholder could increase business focus and make contracting negotiations easier.6O.-K.Hope/China Journal of Accounting Research6(2013)3–202.3.The role of the second-largest shareholderWhile the previous discussion explains the need for shareholders to monitor managers,the literature also establishes the need for shareholders to monitor one another.For example,controlling shareholders have the ability to exploit minority shareholders in closely-held corporations(e.g.,Nagar et al.,2011).Such exploita-tion can include higher compensation to controlling shareholders,misappropriation of assets,and dilution of minority shareholders’interests through the issuance of stock or dividends(Gogineni et al.,2010).As the own-ership stake of a second shareholder increases,so does her ability and willingness to effectively monitor the largest shareholder.The monitoring activities by the second largest shareholder would be similar to those used by the largest shareholder to monitor managers(Hope et al.,2012a).Pagano and Roell(1998)specify conditions under which large shareholders monitor each other,reducing expropriation and improvingfirm performance.They predict that expropriation of minority shareholders is likely to be less severe when the ownership stake of non-controlling shareholders is more concentrated,as such concentration makes it easier and more effective to monitor the controlling shareholder.This is the typical “horizontal agency cost”argument(i.e.,conflicts between majority and minority shareholders)and leads to the prediction that as ownership by the second largest shareholder increases,agency costs decrease.2.4.How do large shareholders exercise their monitoring?Oftenfinance and accounting research is vague on the mechanisms through which monitoring happens.In practice monitoring by a large shareholder could take many forms.Perhaps the most commonly discussed means of monitoring discussed in the literature involves a large shareholder having a seat on the board.Sev-eral studies show in a variety of contexts the board’s role in monitoring managers(e.g.,Fama,1980;Fama and Jensen,1983;Adams et al.,2010).Other forms of direct monitoring would be a large shareholder actively par-ticipating in thefirm’s operations or having routine meetings with managers.As the proportion of ownership increases,the more beneficial it is for large shareholders to engage in these types of costly direct monitoring rge shareholders can also serve to block business decisions that may be considered suboptimal (e.g.,aggressive expansion through negative net present value projects).Doing so involves an investment in time and expertise by the shareholder to understand the consequences of major business rge shareholders are also likely to have more control over thefirm’s dividend(or capital distribution)policy, as a way to further discipline managers’actions.3.Who are the large shareholders?Does it matter?Analytical research on large shareholders tends to be rather generic and often does not consider that there may be very different types of large shareholders.There is surprisingly limited extant research on how different groups of large shareholders can affect corporate outcomes(e.g.,financial reporting quality).5Here I briefly consider research on the following owner types:families(including the CEO as owner),institutional investors, governments,and employees.3.1.Family ownershipA large fraction of businesses throughout the world are organized around families and there is a relatively large literature on family ownership(Bertrand and Schoar,2006).Most of this research in on publicly listed companies.For example,family-controlledfirms dominate in East Asia and Latin America.As an indication of the importance of familyfirms,La Porta et al.(1999)report that65%of the20largestfirms in Argentina have at least a20%family stake;in Hong Kong this fraction is70%.In contrast,in Japan the corresponding number is5%.5An exception is Cronqvist and Fahlenbrach(2009).They examine effects of different types of institutional investors in the US andfind that investor type has significant effects on several corporate policies.The only study I’m aware of in accounting is Dou et al.(2012)who follow an approach similar to Cronqvist and Fahlenbrach(2009)and examine the effects of large shareholders on accounting practices for a large sample of USfirms over the2001–2009period.O.-K.Hope/China Journal of Accounting Research6(2013)3–207 If a researcher is really interested in examining the effects of family ownership,it would seem that private (i.e.,unlisted)firms offer even more fertile ground for research.Section4discusses privatefirms in more detail.A stream of research has examined“familyfirms”included in the S&P500.This line of research is primarily motivated by the fact that,notwithstanding the oft-cited idea that US publiclyfirms have widely dispersed ownership,Shleifer and Vishny(1986)(and others)document that large shareholders are common and,in par-ticular,note that founding families continue to hold equity stakes and board seats in nearly33%of the For-tune500firms.In other words,USfirms may not be as different from those observed elsewhere in the world as thought by many.These founding families represent a unique class of long-term shareholders that hold poorly diversified portfolios and often control senior management positions.Family owners can thus exert influence and control over thefirm,potentially leading to performance differences with nonfamilyfirms.In a widely cited study,Anderson and Reeb(2003)investigate the relation between founding-family own-ership andfirm performance.Theyfind that,contrary to their conjecture,familyfirms perform better than nonfamilyfirms.Additional analyses reveal that the relation between family holdings andfirm performance is nonlinear and that when family members serve as CEO,performance is better than with outside CEOs. Overall,their results are inconsistent with the hypothesis that minority shareholders are adversely affected by family ownership,suggesting that family ownership may be an effective organizational structure.Ali et al.(2007)recognize that,compared with nonfamilyfirms,familyfirms face less severe agency prob-lems due to the separation of ownership and management.However,they face more severe agency problems that arise between controlling and non-controlling shareholders.These conflicting effects are often referred to as“entrenchment versus alignment.”Thus it is not clear what to predict regarding familyfirms’disclosure practices relative to otherfiing a sample of only S&P500firms,Ali et al.(2007)conclude that family firms report better quality earnings,are more likely to warn for a given magnitude of bad news,but make fewer disclosures about their corporate governance practices.Consistent with familyfirms making better financial disclosures,the authorsfind that familyfirms have larger analyst following,more informative ana-lysts’forecasts,and smaller bid–ask spreads.6It is far from clear that the abovefindings should be generalized to other settings,even in the United States. First,although thefirms classified as“familyfirms”by definition meet the definition of a familyfirm for these studies,others may employ a higher threshold for family ownership.Given the nonlinearities documented in the US setting,it is thus highly unclear what to expect in very different environments and with much higher family ownership(e.g.,in privatefirms).Even more importantly,conflicting evidence exists on whether having family ownership increases or decreases afirm’s value,and it seems to be country dependent.Bertrand and Schoar(2006)conclude that there is no strong empirical evidence for the economic superiority of family-con-trolled businesses.According to Bertrand and Schoar(2006),familyfirms appear to underperform relative to nonfamilyfirms in most countries:for example,Claessens et al.(2002)for several Southeast Asian countries; Morck et al.(2000)for Canada;and Cronqvist and Nilsson(2003)for Sweden.Also,Bloom and Van Reenen (2007)find that familyfirms in France,Germany,the United Kingdom and the United States are systemat-ically associated with worse managerial practices.Bertrand and Schoar(2006)note two important exceptions. Khanna and Palepu(2000)find that business groups in India,which are for the most part family-controlled, perform better than stand-alonefirms in matched industries(see more on this below);and Sraer and Thesmar (2007)whofind a premium for familyfirms in France.3.1.1.The role of the CEO in familyfirmsThere is comparatively limited research on the role of the CEO as part of the dominant family.A dominant belief in the literature is that as CEO ownership increases,her incentives align more with those of other share-holders,reducing the agency problem that arises from separation of ownership and control(e.g.,Jensen and Meckling,1976).This is known as the alignment effect which suggests reduced agency costs.6In a closely related study,Chen et al.(2008)find that,compared with nonfamilyfirms,familyfirms provide fewer earnings forecasts and conference calls,but more earnings warnings.The authors interpret the former to be consistent with family owners having a longer investment horizon,better monitoring of management,and lower information asymmetry between owners and managers,they interpret the higher likelihood of earnings warnings to be consistent with family owners having greater litigation and reputation cost concerns.In another related paper,Wang(2006)finds that founding family ownership is associated with higher earnings quality in S&P500firms(but also shows that the relation is non-linear).8O.-K.Hope/China Journal of Accounting Research6(2013)3–20Major shareholders are often family members of the CEO for privatefirms(Hope et al.,2012a).There are interesting competing hypotheses when the CEO is related to the major shareholder.Because of the family relationship,these shareholders no longer act as independent monitors in disciplining CEOs’decisions.In addition,family-controlledfirms are likely to suffer from greater horizontal agency costs.It may be easier for major shareholders,who are family members of the CEO,to extract private benefits from minority share-holders or other stakeholders.The reason it may be easier to extract these benefits is that major family owners typically have strong influence over choosing members of the board.Consequently,the monitoring effective-ness of the board may be impaired when its composition is determined primarily by the CEO’s family.These arguments would support the idea that agency costs will increase when there is a family relation between the CEO and major shareholder(Hope et al.,2012a).An alternative view is that family member CEOs are less likely to act in ways that opportunistically harm other family members.That is,installing a family member as the CEO could be a mechanism through which family-owned companies can increase their monitoring of management and reduce the need for external mon-itoring.If this effect dominates,the agency costs are smaller when the CEO is a family member because famil-ial ties are likely to create closer alignment of the CEO’s preferences with those of family owners.In conclusion,vertical and horizontal agency costs supply opposite predictions for effects of familyfirms.In addition,there are strong differences in the degree to which families control business,to what extent the CEO comes from the dominant family,and in other institutional arrangements.In short,there is ample“tension”in terms of predictions and plenty of room for future research!3.1.2.Hope et al.(2012a)on agency conflicts in(private)familyfirmsHope et al.(2012a)are interested in understanding how agency conflicts in privatefirms arise through own-ership structures and family relationships.They analyze auditors’increase of effort andfirms’choice of audi-tors in situations with higher level of agency conflicts.For a large sample of private Norwegianfirms,they use data obtained through special permission by the government to measure direct and ultimate ownership for each shareholder as well as extended family relationships.Family relationships are measured based on mar-riage and blood lines,going back four generations and extending out to fourth cousin,and cover all share-holders,board members,and CEOs.The authorsfind that(excess)audit fees,their proxy for audit effort in the face of agency conflicts,vary as hypothesized withfirm-level characteristics related to ownership structures and family relationships.Specifi-cally,they show that fees relate negatively to ownership concentration and to the extent of ownership by the second-largest shareholder.Audit fees also relate negatively to the portion of shares held by the CEO,consis-tent with ownership aligning the incentives of the CEO and other stakeholders.Audit fees are further posi-tively associated with family relationships between the CEO and the major shareholder(a signal of reduced monitoring and a situation in which expropriation by the family/major shareholder is easier).With respect to board independence,theyfind that audit fees decline as the number of board members related to the largest shareholder increases,consistent with fewer agency conflicts between owners and the board.In contrast,as the number of board members related to the CEO increases,fees increase,suggesting less board independence and greater agency conflicts.Hope et al.(2012a)report two interesting sets of results for the demand for Big4auditor.First,for agency settings that are not CEO family-related,they observe results consistent with those obtained for the auditor effort tests.Specifically,the propensity to hire a Big4auditor increases as ownership concentration decreases, ownership of the second largest owner decreases,and the major shareholder’s family influence on the board decreases.These results are consistent with the demand for a Big4auditor being greater in higher agency cost settings.They do notfind significant evidence of a relation between hiring a Big4auditor and the fraction of shares owned by the CEO for the main tests but they do in sensitivity tests.The authorsfind no association between the choice to hire a Big4auditor and CEO family-related agency variables.Specifically,there is no significant evidence that the demand for a Big4auditor is affected when a family relationship exists between the CEO and the major shareholder or as the number of board members related to the CEO increases.While some CEOs in family-related agency settings may wish to signal more credible reporting by hiring a Big4auditor,other CEOs in these settings may feel a Big4auditor is eitherO.-K.Hope/China Journal of Accounting Research6(2013)3–209 unnecessary given close family ties or unwanted because of the gains from extracting private benefits which could be reduced by a Big4audit.3.2.Institutional ownershipInstitutional investors such as pension funds and mutual funds are often“large”shareholders.In addition, they are typically viewed as“sophisticated investors”in the literature.The extant theoretical literature gener-ally predicts large institutional investors as an efficient form of corporate governance.However,large institu-tional holders are not using their own money to make investments.Thus,with regulatory constraints or lack of incentives,Coffee(1991)argues that institutional shareholders tend to be passive.Prior research has documented that sophisticated investors behave differently from other,less informed investors(e.g.,Callen et al.,2005).Sophisticated investors have superior abilities and consequently can learn better from experience(Bonner and Walker,1994).Economic incentives are potentially important as well. Institutional investors have large investment portfolios and,therefore,have much more to gain or lose in absolute dollar terms from their investment decisions.Furthermore,the costs of engaging in in-depth firm analysis are lower for institutions,in part because of their superior access to databases and analytical tools.Research documents the existence of distinct groups among institutions that differ in their objectives and information needs.Bushee(1998)classifies institutions into three groups–transient,dedicated,and quasi-indexers.“Transient”institutions have high portfolio turnover and highly diversified portfolio holdings.They focus on the short term and make investments based on the likelihood of short-term trading profits.According to Bushee(2001),the short investment horizons of transient investors create little incentive for them to gather information relevant to long-run value.In contrast,“dedicated”investors and“quasi-indexers”focus on the long term and provide stable owner-ship tofirms.Dedicated investors hold large stakes in a limited number offirms.Such ownership creates greater incentives to invest in monitoring management and to rely on information beyond current earnings to assess managers’performance.Quasi-indexers generally follow indexing and buy-and-hold strategies, and are characterized by high diversification.Although quasi-indexers follow a passive investment strategy, these investors may also have strong incentives to monitor management to ensure that it is acting in the best interest of thefirm.Many studies report results that are consistent with a superior ability of sophisticated investors to gather, analyze,and price information.Price(1998)finds that informed investors appear to make greater use of accounting disclosures and non-earnings information to form more precise earnings expectations.Bonner et al.(2003)document that sophisticated investors incorporate the information inherent in the relative accu-racy of analyst forecasts to a greater extent than less informed investors.In addition,Bhattacharya et al. (2007)provide evidence that sophisticated investors demonstrate less behavioral bias in the way they process pro forma earnings information relative to more sophisticated investors.Finally,the efficiency of afirm’s stock price is associated with the degree of sophistication of thefirm’s marginal investor(e.g.,Bartov et al.,2000).As an example of my own work that includes institutional investors,Chen et al.(2012)shows that the dif-ference between closed-end country funds’net asset values and their trading prices(i.e.,the fund discount)is positively associated with the earnings opacity of the underlying companies.In conditional analyses they fur-therfind that the positive relation between earnings opacity and fund discounts is weaker for those funds with a higher level of institutional ownership.In other words,investors who are better equipped at information acquisition than other investors are able to overcome some of the information disadvantage of being“non-local.”In an earlier study,Callen et al.(2005)find that the variance contribution of foreign earnings increases with the level of investment by long-term(but not short-term)institutional investors.To sum,there is strong evidence that institutional investors are an important class of large shareholders,in part because of their greater expertise in analyzing accounting information.There is also extensive evidence that there is important variation among the different classes of institutional investors.Thus,yet again we con-clude that there is significant diversity among even subgroups of large shareholders.。

外文翻译---总裁股权激励的投资者定价

外文翻译---总裁股权激励的投资者定价

外文翻译---总裁股权激励的投资者定价Investor pricing of CEO equity incentivesJeff P. Boone Inder K. Khurana K. K. RamanAbstractThe main purpose of this paper is to explore CEO compensation in the form of stock and options.The objective of CEO compensation is to better align CEO-shareholder interests by inducing CEOs to make more optimal (albeit risky) investment decisions. However, recent research suggests that these incentives have a significant down-side (i.e., they motivate executives to manipulate reported earnings and lower information quality). Given the conflict between the positive CEO-shareholder incentive alignment effect and the dysfunctional information quality effect, it is an open empirical question whether CEO equity incentives increase firm value. We examine whether CEO equity incentives are priced in the firm-specific ex ante equity risk premium over the 1992–2007 time period. Our analysis controls fortwo potential structural changes over this time period. The first is the 1995 Delaware Supreme Court ruling which increased protection from takeovers (and decreased risk) for Delaware incorporated firms. The second is the 2002 Sarbanes–Oxley Act whichimpacted corporate risk taking, equity incentives, and earnings management. Collectively, our findings suggest that CEO equityincentives, despite being associated with lower information quality, increase firm value through a cost of equity capital channel.Keywords:CEO equity incentives,Information quality,Cost of equity capitalIntroductionIn this study, we investigate investor pricing of CEO equityincentives for a large sample of US firms over the period 1992–2007.Because incentives embedded in CEOcompensation contracts may be expected to influence policy choicesat the firm level, our objective is to examine whether CEO equity incentives influence firm value through a cost of equity capital channel.Prior research (e.g., Jensen et al. 2004; Jensen and Murphy 1990) suggests that equity- based compensation, i.e., CEO compensation in the form of stock and options,provides the CEO a powerful inducement to take actions to increase shareholder value (by investing in more risky but positive net present value projects). Put differently, equity incentives are expected to help mitigate agency costs by aligning the interests of the CEO with those of the shareholders, and otherwise help communicate to investors the important idea that the firm’s objective is to maximize shareholder wealth (Hall andMurphy 2003).However, recent research contends that equity incentives also have a perverse or dysfunctional downside. In particular, equity-basedcompensation makes managers more sensitive to the firm’s stock price, and increases their incentive to manipulatereported earnings—i.e., to create the appearance of meeting or beating earnings benchmarks (such as analysts’ forecasts)—in an attempt to bolster the stock price andtheir personal wealth invested in the firm’s stock and options (Bergstresser andPhilippon 2006; Burns and Kedia 2006; Cheng and Warfield 2005). Stated in another way, CEO equity incentives can have an adverse effect on the quality of reported accounting information. As noted by Bebchuk and Fried (2003) and Jensen et al. (2004), by promoting perverse financial reporting incentives and lowering the quality of accounting information, equity-based compensation can be a source of, rather than a solution for, the agency problem.Despite these arguments about the putative ill effects of equity incentives, equity-based compensation continues to be a salient component of the total pay packages for CEOs. Still, given the conflict between the positive incentive alignment effect and the dysfunctional effect of lower information quality, it is an open empirical question whether CEO equity incentives increase firm value. To our knowledge, prior research provides mixed evidence on this issue. For example, Mehran (1995) examines 1979–1980 compensation data and finds that equity-based compensation is positively related to the firm’s Tobin’s Q. By contrast, Aboody (1996) examines compensation data for a sample offirms for years 1980 through 1990, and finds a negative correlation between the value of outstanding options and the firm’s share price, suggesting that thedilution effect dominates the options’ incenti ve alignment effect. Moreover, both these studies are based on dated (i.e., pre-1991) data.In our study, we examine whether CEO equity incentives are relatedto the firm-specific ex ante equity risk premium, i.e., the excess ofthe firm’s ex ante cost of equity capital over the risk-free interest rate (a metric discussed by Dhaliwal et al.2006).Consistent with Core and Guay (2002), we measure CEO equity incentives as the sensitivity of the CEO’s stock and option portfolioto a 1 percent change in the stock price. Based on a sample of 16,502firm-year observations over a 16 year period (1992–2007), we find CEO equity incentives to be negatively related to the firm’s ex ante equity risk premium, suggesting that the positive incentive alignment effect dominates the dysfunctional effect of lower information quality. Inother analysis, we attempt to control for two regulatory (structural) changes that occurred during the 1992–2007 time period of our study.As pointed out by Daines(2001), regulatory changes can have an impact on firm values and returns as well as the structure of executive compensation. First, Low (2009) finds that following the 95 Delaware Supreme Court ruling that resulted in greater takeover protection, managers reduced firm risk by turning down risk-increasing (albeit positive NPV) projects. In response,firms increased CEO equity incentives to mitigate the risk aversion. Potentially, the impact of the Delaware ruling on managers’ risk aversion and the follow-up increase in equity incentives (to mitigatethe increase in managers’ risk aversion following the ruling) may have resulted in a structural change in our sample at least for firms incorporated in Delaware. To control for this potential structural impact, we perform our analysis for Delaware incorporated firms for1996–2007 separately.Our results suggest that the favorable effect of CEO equityincentives on firm value (as reflected in the lower ex ante equity risk premium) is similar for Delaware firms and other firms.Second, a number of studies (e.g., Cohen et al. 2007, 2008; Li et al. 2008) indicate that the 2002 Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) lowered equity incentives (i.e., reducedthe proportion of equity incentives to total compensation post-SOX), reduced managerial risk taking, decreased spending on R&D and capital expenditures, and reduced accruals-based earnings management while increasing real earnings management. Since real earnings management is potentially more difficult for investors to detect than accruals-based earnings management, a possible consequence of SOX could be an increase in agency costs since 2002. To control for the potential structural changes imposed by SOX both in terms of expected returns and the levelof equity incentives, we perform our analysis for the pre-SOX and post-SOX time periods separately. For each of the two time periods, ourresults suggest a favorable effect of CEO equity incentives on firm value (as reflected in the lower ex ante equity risk premium), although the effect appears to be stronger in the post-SOX period.Our study contributes to the literature on the valuation of equity incentives. We provide (to our knowledge) first-time evidence on the relation between CEO equity incentives and the ex ante cost of equity capital. Prior research has focused by and large on the consequences of managerial equity incentives for firm performance (Mehran 1995; Hanlon et al.2003) and risk taking (Rajgopal and Shevlin 2002; Coles et al. 2006; Hanlon et al. 2004) rather than on valuation per se. As noted previously, to our knowledge only two prior studies (Aboody1996 and Mehran 1995, both based on pre-1991 data) have examined the pricing of managerial equity incentives, with mixed results.In our study, we provide evidence on the valuation effects of CEO equity incentives based on more recent (1992–2007) data. By focusing on more recent data, our findingsrelate to a growing line of research on the association between equity-based compensation and accounting information quality. Specifically, Coffee (2004) suggests that the $1 million limit on the tax deductibility of cash compensation for senior executives imposed by Congress in 1993 motivated firms to make greater use of equity compensation which, in turn, increased the sensitivity of managers to the firm’s stock price. Bergstresser and Philippon (2006) and Cheng and Warfield (2005) provide evidence which suggests that equity incentivesare positively related to the magnitude of accruals-based earnings management. Similarly, Burns and Kedia (2006) and Efendi et al. (2007) report CEO equity incentives to be positively related to accounting irregularities and the subsequent restatement of previously issued financial statements. Thus, prior research suggests that equity-based compensation has a negative effect on the quality of earnings reported by firms. Consistent with several published empirical studies that support the notion that lower information quality is priced in a higher cost of equity capital (e.g., Bhattacharya et al. 2003; Francis et al. 2005), CEO equity incentives could potentially lower firm value by increasing the firm-specific equity risk premium.As noted previously, we document that CEO equity incentives (despite the associated lower information quality) are related negatively to the firm’s e x ante equity risk premium, implying that equity incentives increase firm value by lowering the firm’s cost of equity capital.Thus, our findings suggest that the positive CEO-shareholder incentive alignment effect associated with equity incentives dominates the dysfunctional information quality effect.Since 1992, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has mandated the public disclosure of executive compensation data to promote informed decision making by investors. Our ,ndings provide further evidence that these disclosures increase the informativeness of stock prices in competitive securities markets. Collectively, given that CEO compensation is a topic of ongoing interest (Jensen et al. 2004; Reich2007), our ,ndings indicate that CEO equity incentives in,uence ,rm value favorably through a cost of equity capital channel.Concluding remarksPrior research (e.g., Goldman and Slezak 2006; Jensen et al. 2004) suggests that CEO equity incentives can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, these incentives can mitigate the agency problem by aligning the interests of the CEO with those of the shareholders (i.e., by inducing CEOs to prefer more optimal, albeit risky, investment choices). On the other hand, these incentives can lead to excessive sensitivity to share price performance and induce executives to manipulate reported earnings with an eye on the stock price. In other words, by promoting perverse reporting incentives and lowering the quality of accounting information pertinent to investor pricing decisions, CEO equity incentives can potentially be a part of, not a remedy for, the agency problem. However, to our knowledge there is little to no prior evidence to suggest which effect—the positive incentive alignment effect or the perverse information quality effect—dominates.We contribute to the literature in several ways. First, we show that CEO equity incentives are negatively related to the firm-specific equity risk premium, i.e., the positive incentive alignment effect associated with these incentives dominates the dysfunctional information quality effect in the pricing of the firm-specific ex ante equity risk premium. Second, since equity incentives are intended to induce CEOs to make more optimal (albeit risky) investment decisions, the effect of theseincentives on shareholder wealth in the post-SOX time period is of particular interest. Our results suggest that the economic significance of these incentives (i.e., the payoff for shareholders in terms of a lower ex ante equity risk premium and a higher firm value) was in fact higher in the post-SOX time period. Finally, our findings provide further evidence that the SEC mandated disclosures (since 1992) of executive compensation data increases the informativeness of stock prices with respect to the potentialimplications of CEO equity incentives for the cost of equity capital and firm value. At this time, CEO compensation is a topic of ongoing interest for regulators and investors (Jensen et al. 2004; Reich 2007). Collectively, our findings complement and extend prior research on equity incentives. They are potentially useful in better informing regulators and investors faced with questions about the possible consequences of CEO equity incentives for shareholder wealth.总裁股权激励的投资者定价Jeff P. Boone Inder K. Khurana K. K. Raman摘要本论文的主要目的是探讨首席执行官以股票和期权形式的报酬问题。

PN5【范本模板】

PN5【范本模板】

The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong LimitedPractice Note 5to the Rules Governing the Listing of Securities(the “Exchange Listing Rules”)Issued pursuant to rule 1.06 of the Exchange Listing RulesDISCLOSURE OF INTERESTS INFORMATION1. DefinitionsTerms used in this Practice Note which are defined or interpreted in the Exchange Listing Rules shall have the same meaning as in the Exchange Listing Rules。

2. The requirements of the Exchange Listing RulesParagraphs 45 of Part A, 38 of Part B and 49 of Part C of Appendix 1 and paragraph 13 of Appendix16 of the Exchange Listing Rules require issuers to disclose, in certain listing documents and annualand interim reports,details of substantial shareholders’ and certain other persons’ interests and short positions in the shares and underlying shares of the issuer and directors’ and chief executives' interests and short positions in the shares, underlying shares and debentures of the issuer and any associated corporation, as recorded (or, in the case of a new listing, to be recorded) in the registers required to be kept under sections 336 and 352 of the Securities and Futures Ordinance (“SFO”),subject to certain stated exceptions or waivers that may be given by the Exchange. Certain circulars to shareholders may also be required to contain such information。

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来源:Yonca Ertimur, Ewa Sletten, Jayanthi Sunder. Large shareholders and disclosure strategies: Evidence from IPO lockup expirations. J. Journal of Accounting and Economics 58(2014):79-95
大股东和披露策略--来自上市锁定期的证据
一、写作目的:
之前的一些研究发现管理层通过策略性的披露来使自己受益,但作者认为管理层自身利益不是策略性披露的唯一动机,一些大股东比如风险投资者、对冲基金投资者等对管理层能够施加重大影响,所以说,作者认为大股东是否能够对策略性披露施加重大影响是个值得探讨的话题,同时,作者通过调查研究发现当投资者有较强的出售股权动机时,经营业绩差的公司会选择推迟不好信息的披露。

二、文章结构:
分为五个部分:第一部分是引言,第二部分是相关文献研究背景和假设的建立,第三部分是样本选取过程,第四部分是测试结果的讨论,最后一部分是得出结论。

三、主要观点:
1.当业绩差的公司的大股东具有较高的出售股权动机时,他们会对管理层施加影响以使他们拖延对不利消息的披露,尤其是当企业面临的诉讼风险比较低时。

2.企业信息的披露会通过两种方式影响在IPO前持有企业股份的股东出售股权时的股价:一是在企业信息发布后,披露直接影响股价,二是披露会影响企业信息的不确定性,这会导致股价对出售情况的反应。

3.只在企业面临的诉讼风险较低、不确定性较大时才会出现较高的股权出售动机会影响企业披露的情形。

4.只有对企业盈利的不利股价反应能够被推迟到IPO前持有股权的股东出售他们的股票之后才能说推迟不利信息的披露对这些股东有益。

四、研究设计:
(一)1.建立假说1A:企业在IPO期间发表不利预测的倾向要低于在其他正常期间发表的倾向。

假说1B:企业在IPO期间发表利好预测的倾向要高于在其他正常期间发表的倾向。

2.对假说1A和1B的测试:分别在具有利好消息和不利消息的企业中比较企业在IPO季度和接下来的四个季度中发表预测的可能性。

3.测试结果:结果支持假说1A但不支持假说1B。

(二)1.建立假说2:企业在IPO期间推迟披露不利消息、迅速发表利好消息的这种披露策略在股东具有强烈出售动机的企业中表现的更为明显。

2.测试模型:Forecast=β°+β¹Predicted Abnormal
2-Controls+Year Fixed Effects+ƹ
Volume+β11
3.测试结果:假说成立。

(三)1.建立假说:推迟不利消息的披露、迅速披露利好信息的披露策略在IPO 时期被锁定的风险投资者较多的公司中更为显著。

2.测试模型:Forecast=β°+β¹VC Ownership Locked%+β²Manager
4-Controls+Year Ownership Locked%+β³Residual Ownership Locked% +β13
Fixed Effects+ƹ
3.测试结果:假设成立。

(四)1.测试诉讼风险和不确定性对企业披露策略的影响
2.测试模型:(二)、(三)模型的变异
3.测试结果:结果都是显著的,且集中在具有低诉讼风险和高不确定性的公司上。

(五)1.对管理层出售股权是否影响披露策略进行测试
2.测试模型:Forecast=β°+β¹VC High Sell+β²Manager High Sell+β³Manager High Sell*VC High Sell+β4Residua Abnormal
5 Controls+Year Fixed Effects+ƹ
Volume+β14
3.测试结果:大股东出售股权时比大股东和管理层同时出售股权时企业拖延不利消息披露的可能性更大,即管理层拖延不利消息的披露不是为了自身利益,而是为了股东的利益。

(六)作者假定披露政策会使股价在两方面受益:一是将股价因不利消息的波动推迟到利润宣告之后,从而使IPO前持有股权的股东能够得到较高的股价。

二是不利消息的拖延削弱了IPO到期后股权交易的不利价格影响。

并使用两个模型分别测试这两种收益方式并得到了验证。

1.Abnormal Returns=β°+β¹No Forecast+β2News Magnitude+Year Fixed Effects+ƹ
2.Abnormal Returns=β°+β¹No Forecast+β2News Magnitude+β³Abnormal Volume+β4Abnormal Volume*No Forecast+Year Fixed Effects+ƹ
(七)样本数据的筛选:对于来自于SDC数据库的在1995年1月到2005年10月实施了IPO的2973家企业的数据中,去除无法获得声明期的数据、去除锁定期和声明期一致和接近的数据、去除不含所要求的控制变量的数据后,得到了776家企业3126季的数据。

五、结论:
1.对于业绩差的企业,在锁定期发布盈余预测的可能性要比在之后发表的可能性低,这种策略能够使大股东出售股权时获得更大的收益。

同时,在诉讼风险较低和不确定性较高时,风险投资者出售股权的动机越大,拖延不利消息披露的可能性越大。

此外,管理层和其他股东的出售动机不会影响企业的披露政策。

2.通过拖延不利信息的披露,业绩差的企业将不利的股票收益变动推迟到盈余宣告之后,同时避免了锁定期后出售股权时不利的股价影响。

六、评价:
1.该项研究强调了大股东的股权出售动机如何影响了管理层的披露决策,说明了一些大的、有影响力的股东可以改变企业的披露策略以符合自身的利益。

2.来自锁定期的证据使我们深入地思考诸如对冲基金、个人独资企业的投资者等有动机对企业的信息流和广大股东施加影响的大股东的地位。

注:IPO expiration:上市锁定期,是指为降低对二级市场的冲击或者为保护其他中小投资者的公平权利,对部分投资者采取的一定期限内限制其在证券市场转让其持有上市公司股份的行为,限制的这段期限即为锁定期。

一般根据《公司法》、《证券法》、《上交所上市规则》等的规定,IPO的控股股东及其关联人自上市之日起锁定三年,其他股东锁定一年。

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