Shareholding Structure and Dividend Policy as Exemplified by the Stock-listed Industrial Companies

This article is aimed at evaluating the influence of the forms of controlling stock-listed companies upon the decisions being taken in regard of the distribution of profits and the payout of dividends in the unstable macro-economic environment. The form of the ownership supervision reflects the relations between shareholders and managers of the company. The conflicts resulting from the separation of ownership and management of a company concern, among others, the dividend payout. The dividend constitutes a shareholder’s reward for rendering his capital available to the company, while for a company it is a cost in the form of the capital’s reduction and the limitation of investing abilities. Whereas the macro-economic environment influences the financial standing of companies and their profits, which are then used for paying out dividends, and simultaneously defines the investment needs of companies. A hypothesis can be put forward that the economic slowdown limits the access to attractive investment projects, which results in companies being interested in the payout of relatively high dividends. This hypothesis is verifiable on the ground of the decisions taken in regard of the distribution of the profit made by the stock-listed companies of the processing industry between 2007 and 2012.