Search Results (12)

This study empirically examines the determinants of merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in Vietnam from 2005 to 2020, which has not been examined before, using a fixed-effects model for a sample of 674 completed M&A deals. The results indicate that targets’ corporate governance and deal characteristics have mixed effects on M&A decisions. More specifically, the independent member of the board and CEO duality of the target is negatively associated with most M&A types, except for cross-border mergers. However, the impact of targets’ blockholders is consistently positive regardless of M&A types. When observing the deal characteristics, mixed evidence is also found in the case of M&A payment form, industry-relatedness between the bidder and the target, the bidder’s stake in the target, and foreign ownership in the bidder’s stake. More interesting, our study emphasizes that voluntary agreement is seemingly critical to M&A decisions regardless of different types. Our results suggest several important implications, including balancing independent directors on the board, accounting for CEOs’ and other blockholders’ interests and influence, considering the types of M&A payments, and involving foreign investors in M&A activities. By understanding these implications, firms can better navigate the complexities of M&A transactions, enhancing their decision-making processes and ultimately contributing to improved shareholder value. Full article

This study explores the impact of corporate governance on firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, with a focus on board characteristics and ownership structures. Using a panel dataset of 6 financial and 16 non-financial firms listed on the Borsa Istanbul (BIST) from 2013 to 2021, the study investigates how ownership (blockholder, foreign, or institutional) and board composition (size, gender diversity, and foreign directors) influence ESG disclosures. The analysis distinguishes between financial and non-financial firms, revealing that corporate governance mechanisms affect ESG performance differently across sectors. Foreign ownership and the presence of foreign and female board members are positively associated with higher ESG disclosures, while ownership concentration is negatively correlated with ESG performance. These findings suggest caution when comparing firms across sectors based solely on ESG disclosures, as governance factors influence outcomes differently in financial and non-financial contexts. This study provides a detailed analysis of effective corporate governance mechanisms in Türkiye, emphasizing the crucial roles of ownership structure and board composition in enhancing ESG transparency. The results offer valuable insights for regulators and investors, contributing to a nuanced understanding of how governance structures shape ESG performance in both financial and non-financial firms in Türkiye. Full article

This paper examines the relationship between the presence of blockholdings and stock returns and return volatility in the United Arab Emirates. Earlier studies report mixed results for the direction of the relationships across both developed and emerging markets. This study focuses specifically on these relationships in a dividend policy framework. This study further investigates the role of blockholder type by distinguishing between government, individual and corporate blockholders. Our results indicate that blockholder ownership reduces stock return volatility for both non-dividend-paying and dividend-paying stocks, does not impact returns and is not perceived as expropriating the wealth of other investors. We also conclude that the blockholders do not exhibit rent-seeking behavior through the extraction of dividends and investors in UAE firms embrace the role of blockholders and the reinvestment of profits. Full article

In this paper, we analyse the relationship between the distribution of ownership and firm value in the presence of multiple blockholders. In recent years, the topic has attracted the attention of many scholars. Yet, the empirical evidence on the relationship between the distribution of ownership among large shareholders and firm value has been non-conclusive and contradictory. We focus on the interaction between a controlling block of shareholders and a non-controlling block that can monitor the largest controlling block. We develop and simulate a simple model combining the two effects related to the presence of additional blockholders that can monitor the largest controlling block of shareholders. The first concerns the incentives of the controlling blockholders to expropriate other shareholders (the alignment effect); the second concerns the incentives for non-controlling blockholders to exercise monitoring activities (the monitoring effect). We examine the influence of the distribution of ownership between controlling and non-controlling shareholders on the total amount of company resources diverted to provide private benefits to controlling shareholders. Since net firm value is decreasing in the amount of company resources diverted, our analysis sheds light on the relationship between the ownership structure and firm value. We show that, in the presence of multiple blockholders, the relationship between ownership concentration and firm value may change depending on the relative size of the shareholders and the relative size of private benefits of control. Our results help in understanding the variety of shapes that have been empirically detected, and shed some light on the conditions that make optimal diversions, as a function of the level of ownership concentration, monotone (increasing and decreasing) or non-monotone. Full article

Discretionary accruals reflect the management’s accounting choices made within the flexibility of accounting standards. Discretionary accruals can be used by the management to better reflect the economic value of the firm and to signal their private information about a firm’s future prospects to the market, but they can also be used opportunistically by managers. However, the prior literature documents mixed evidence related to the information content in discretionary accruals. Thus, we examine the association between discretionary accruals and analysts’ forecast dispersion to provide further evidence on the information content in discretionary accruals. Moreover, as greater external monitoring and rigorous ESG management allow less room for manager’s manipulation of discretionary accruals, we investigate whether greater external monitoring by institutional owners and higher ESG scores moderate the relationship between discretionary accruals and analysts’ disagreements on long-term EPS growth forecasts. We find a positive association between discretionary accruals and analysts’ forecast dispersion, which suggests there is low information content in discretionary accruals. Furthermore, we find that a greater concentration in institutional ownership, greater blockholders’ institutional ownership, and a positive ESG score mitigate the positive relationship between discretionary accruals and analysts’ forecast dispersion. Thus, better external monitoring and higher quality ESG enhance the information credibility of a firm’s disclosure. Full article

This paper studies the relationship between blockholder dispersion and the informativeness of earnings using a sample of Korean companies. Investors prefer less volatile and more sustainable earnings and managers have incentives to manage earnings to meet investor demand. We show evidence that firms with dispersed ownership, which are likely to suffer from high levels of information asymmetry, smooth earnings in order to relieve investors’ concerns regarding information asymmetry. Furthermore, our regression analyses on the relation between returns and future earnings reveal that earnings smoothing conducted by firms with dispersed ownership leads to higher informativeness of earnings. This study provides important implications for various financial statement users in interpreting firms’ earnings sustainability, especially in the East Asian countries where a wide spectrum of ownership concentration structure exists. Full article

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether firm ownership characteristics can explain demand for Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) implementation. Specifically, we examine the relationship between the presence of large shareholders, multiple blockholders and a dual-class share structure, and ERM implementation. To our knowledge we provide the first evidence on the effect of multiple blockholders and dual-class share structures on the implementation of ERM. ERM best practices can be considered as governance tools, used to monitor managerial discretion in risk management, ultimately reducing the agency cost of risk management. Accordingly, we analyze the demand for ERM in certain governance (e.g., ownership) settings. We use quantitative methods in our study: survey and regressions (tobit and logit models). Ownership data is hand-collected while ERM data comes from a survey conducted in the Nordic region. We find that ERM is implemented less frequently in firms where there are multiple blockholders, and where large controlling owners hold dual-class shares. These findings indicate that there is less demand for ERM’s monitoring role in firms that are associated with high agency costs. Given the increasing use of dual-class share structures, we believe further examination of ownership characteristics and corporate risk management is warranted. Full article

As corporate sustainability continues to improve and enhance the principles of good corporate governance, firms are exerting increasing efforts in terms of transparency and public disclosure. Transparency efforts provide information to the general public on the relationship between corporate governance and improved sustainability. The better informed shareholders are about the connection between corporate governance and sustainability, the more apparent the relationship will become over time. Prior studies assume that blockholders engage in active institutional monitoring by intervening directly in firms’ operations. In contrast, we argue that passive institutional monitoring is a more feasible governance mechanism in the Korean market owing to the market’s unique features (i.e., chaebols and pressure sensitivity). In particular, focusing on the blockholdings of the Korean National Pension Service (KNPS), we study the impact of passive monitoring on firms’ earnings quality, represented by earnings persistence, value relevance, and timeliness. The empirical evidence shows that KNPS blockholdings have a positive and significant impact on corporate earnings quality, indicating that passive blockholder monitoring is a more efficient channel for improving earnings quality in South Korea. Our results may be generalized to other emerging markets in which a few entities with concentrated economic power engender pressure-sensitive corporate landscapes for sustainability. Full article

This study investigates the monitoring effectiveness of the largest institutional blockholder in Korea, the Korean National Pension Service (KNPS), on firms’ engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR). We use a large, unique sample from Korea, where the financial market is primarily characterized by chaebols. We show that lagged KNPS blockholdings do not significantly influence investee firms’ concurrent CSR indexes. This result indicates that even the largest institutional blockholder in Korea does not actively engage in firms’ CSR initiatives to enhance their long-term performance and prosperity. Overall, our results suggest that institutional investors should more actively serve as an effective corporate governance mechanism in emerging Asian markets, where companies aim to be profitable and long-term corporate governance is very important. Full article

This paper explores drivers of corporate water disclosure (CWD) from an aspect of accountability. Based on legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory, we propose six potential drivers of CWD. First, this paper uses an independent sample t-test to analyze differences in CWD among US firms. Later, potential drivers on CWD were identified using ordinal logit regression. These hypotheses posit that debt ratio, blockholders’ ownership ratio, inclusion in a capital market index (i.e., S&P500), and the status of belonging to a water-sensitive industry (WSensi) all have a positive effect on CWD. However, the relations of firm size and profitability on CWD are insignificant. This suggests that the supervision of blockholders and creditors can effectively improve the transparency of CWD. Full article

This study discusses the institutional investors’ shareholding base on corporate governance system in Taiwan. The sample was 4760 Taiwanese companies from 2005 to 2012. Then, this study established six hypotheses to investigate the effects of corporate governance on institutional investors’ shareholdings. The panel data regression model and piecewise regression model were adopted to determine whether six hypotheses are supported. For sensitive analysis, additional consideration was given on the basis of industrial category (electronics or nonelectronics), and the 2008–2010 global financial crises. This study discovered that a nonlinear relationship exists between the domestic institutional investors’ shareholdings. The managerial ownership ratio and blockholder ownership ratio have positive effects both on domestic and foreign institutional investors. However, domestic and foreign institutional investors have distinct opinions regarding independent director ratios. Finally, the corporate governance did not improve institutional investors’ shareholdings during financial crisis periods; instead, they paid more attention to firm profits or other characteristics. Full article

This paper examines the abnormal returns of acquiring real estate investment trusts (REITs) around the announcement of acquisitions before and after the subprime mortgage crisis. Based on 182 domestic and cross-border US REIT acquisition announcements from 2005 to 2010, the acquiring trusts experienced a 0.73% abnormal return, on average. When the sample was divided into pre-crisis, crisis, and after-crisis subsamples, the acquiring trusts enjoyed the largest abnormal returns (1.86%) for domestic acquisitions during the crisis period. Before the crisis, when the acquisition was cross-border, the target was private, or the transaction was cash-financed, the acquiring trust experienced larger abnormal returns. During the crisis period, the acquiring trust gained larger abnormal returns when the transaction value was larger. After the crisis period, the acquiring trust achieved less abnormal returns in cross-border mergers. For both pre- and after-crisis periods, the shareholders of the acquirer enjoyed larger abnormal returns when the mergers were cash-financed, regardless of whether the target was public or privately held. Neither the blockholder monitoring nor the signaling hypothesis can explain such value gains. The structural changes in the acquirer’s abnormal returns are possibly due to the increased risk aversion of the market participants following the crisis. Full article