The Effect Of Changes In Ownership Structure On Performance

Restrictions on the ownership structure of a public company may harm the company's performance by preventing owners from choosing the best structure. We examine the stock-price performance and ownership structure, before and after the expiration of anti-takeover regulations, of a sample of thrift institutions that converted from mutual to stock ownership. We find that after the anti-takeover provisions expire, firm performance improves significantly, and the portions of the firm owned by managers, noninstitutional outside block holders, and the firm's employee stock ownership plan increase. Changes in performance are positively associated with changes in ownership by managers and by noninstitutional outside block holders but negatively associated with changes in ownership by employee stock ownership plans.

Restrictions on stock ownership may harm a company's performance because restrictions prevent owners from choosing an optimal structure. We examine the stock-price performance and ownership structure of a sample of thrift institutions that converted from mutual to stock ownership. We find that, after conversion and the expiration of ownership-structure restrictions, firm performance improves significantly, and the portions of the firm owned by managers and the firm's employee stock ownership plan increase. Changes in performance are positively associated with changes in ownership by managers, but negatively associated with changes in ownership by employee stock ownership plans.

The relationship between ownership structure and firm performance has been studied extensively in corporate finance and corporate governance literature. Nevertheless, the mediation (path) analysis to examine the issue can be adopted as a new approach to explain why and how ownership structure is related to firm performance and vice versa. This approach calls for full recognition of the roles of agency costs and corporate risk-taking as essential mediating variables in the bi-directional and mediated relationship between ownership structure and firm performance. Based on the agency theory, corporate risk management theory and accounting for the dynamic endogeneity in the ownership–performance relationship, this book develops two-mediator mediation models, including recursive and non-recursive mediation models, to investigate the ownership structure–firm performance relationship. It is demonstrated that agency costs and corporate risk-taking are the ‘missing links’ in the ownership structure–firm performance relationship. Hence, this book brings into attention the mediation and dynamic approach to this issue and enhances the knowledge of the mechanisms for improving firm’s financial performance. This book will be of interest to corporate finance, management and economics researchers and policy makers. Post-graduate research students in corporate governance and corporate finance will also find this book beneficial to the application of econometrics into multi-dimensional and complex issues of the firm, including ownership structure, agency problems, corporate risk management and financial performance.

Based on a survey of 29 public companies conducted in 1980-1988.

This report reflects long-term, in-depth discussion and debate by participants in the Latin American Roundtable on Corporate Governance.

The paper consists of two parts. In the first part, the authors briefly summarize the results of previous analyses devoted to such issues of relevance as the ownership structure of privatized companies in Poland and how it changed over the course of the 1990s, what factors seemed to have influenced those changes, the economic performance of these companies, and the composition of corporate governance organs such as supervisory and executive boards. In the second part, the authors present the results of econometric analysis of the relationship between performance and ownership structure evolution, focusing on concentration and the respective roles of three types of owners - managers, non-managerial employees, and strategic outside investors. In reference to the debate about whether ownership variables are exogenous or endogenous for performance, they test both hypotheses concerning the effect of ownership on performance and concerning the effect of performance on ownership change.

The book illustrates that the impact of ownership on firm value depends not only on the concentration of ownership but also on the identity of blockholders. Large shareholders can use their power to influence corporate performance. However, owners are no homogenous group and have different motivations and abilities.