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Article

Founder CEOs and Utility Firms’ Financial Choices

by
Md Asif Ul Alam
1,*,
Md Maruf Ul Alam
2 and
Toufiq Nazrul
3
1
Department of Business Administration, College of Business, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA 19530, USA
2
Department of Finance, Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
3
Schroeder Family School of Business Administration, University of Evansville, Evansville, IN 47722, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
J. Risk Financ. Manag. 2025, 18(10), 531; https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm18100531
Submission received: 12 August 2025 / Revised: 11 September 2025 / Accepted: 13 September 2025 / Published: 23 September 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Corporate Governance and Financial Reporting)
Versions Notes

Abstract

Founder CEOs lead a significant number of public U.S. firms, and these firms often differ from other firms led by non-founder CEOs in terms of various important firm characteristics. In our paper, we investigate the financial choices of founder-CEO-led firms and non-founder-CEO firms in a utility industry setting within the context of the U.S. Our results show that founder CEO status has a significant positive influence on financial choices (cash holdings, investment ratio, equity ratio, and interest coverage) of utility companies. After addressing potential causality and performing additional robust measures, our findings still hold and suggest that CEO origin is important for explaining variation in financial choices of utility companies. Overall, our findings make a valuable contribution to the literature on utility firms, founder CEOs, and CEO characteristics by connecting them through an angle that is previously unexplored.
Keywords: founder CEO; financial choices; utility company; corporate governance; firm performance founder CEO; financial choices; utility company; corporate governance; firm performance

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Alam, M.A.U.; Alam, M.M.U.; Nazrul, T. Founder CEOs and Utility Firms’ Financial Choices. J. Risk Financ. Manag. 2025, 18, 531. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm18100531

AMA Style

Alam MAU, Alam MMU, Nazrul T. Founder CEOs and Utility Firms’ Financial Choices. Journal of Risk and Financial Management. 2025; 18(10):531. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm18100531

Chicago/Turabian Style

Alam, Md Asif Ul, Md Maruf Ul Alam, and Toufiq Nazrul. 2025. "Founder CEOs and Utility Firms’ Financial Choices" Journal of Risk and Financial Management 18, no. 10: 531. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm18100531

APA Style

Alam, M. A. U., Alam, M. M. U., & Nazrul, T. (2025). Founder CEOs and Utility Firms’ Financial Choices. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 18(10), 531. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm18100531

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