IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/7934.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Institutional Investors as Minority Shareholders: Do They Matter When Ownership Is Concentrated?

Author

Listed:
  • Yafeh, Yishay
  • Hamdani, Assaf

Abstract

We shed new light on the corporate governance role of institutional investors in markets where concentrated ownership and business groups are prevalent. When companies have controlling shareholders, institutional investors, as minority shareholders, can play only a limited role in corporate governance. Moreover, the presence of powerful families who control many public companies through business groups creates new potential sources of conflicts of interests for institutional investors. Using hand-collected data on voting patterns of institutional investors in Israel, we establish four main stylized facts: (1) Legal intervention plays an important role in shaping voting behavior; (2) Voting against company proposals is more likely in compensation-related proposals, even when institutional investors are unlikely to influence outcomes; (3) Institutional investors with certain other business activities (e.g. underwriting) and those affiliated with a public company or business group are more likely to support insider-sponsored proposals than "pure-play," stand-alone investors; and (4) Large firms tend to enjoy a more favorable treatment from institutional investors, whereas firm performance has virtually no impact on voting. One possible implication of these results is that, in order for institutions to play a role in corporate governance, what matters most is not the legal power granted to minority shareholders but rather the absence of conflicts of interest.

Suggested Citation

  • Yafeh, Yishay & Hamdani, Assaf, 2010. "Institutional Investors as Minority Shareholders: Do They Matter When Ownership Is Concentrated?," CEPR Discussion Papers 7934, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7934
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP7934
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2006. "What Works in Securities Laws?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 1-32, February.
    2. Martijn Cremers & Roberta Romano, 2009. "Institutional Investors and Proxy Voting on Compensation Plans: The Impact of the 2003 Mutual Fund Voting Disclosure Regulation," NBER Working Papers 15449, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Matvos, Gregor & Ostrovsky, Michael, 2010. "Heterogeneity and peer effects in mutual fund proxy voting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 90-112, October.
    4. Matvos, Gregor & Ostrovsky, Michael, 2008. "Cross-ownership, returns, and voting in mergers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(3), pages 391-403, September.
    5. Mariassunta Giannetti & Luc Laeven, 2009. "Pension Reform, Ownership Structure, and Corporate Governance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(10), pages 4091-4127, October.
    6. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
    7. Davis, Gerald F. & Kim, E. Han, 2007. "Business ties and proxy voting by mutual funds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 552-570, August.
    8. Marco Becht & Julian Franks & Colin Mayer & Stefano Rossi, 2010. "Returns to Shareholder Activism: Evidence from a Clinical Study of the Hermes UK Focus Fund," NBER Chapters, in: Corporate Governance, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Djankov, Simeon & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2008. "The law and economics of self-dealing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 430-465, June.
    10. Brickley, James A. & Lease, Ronald C. & Smith, Clifford Jr., 1994. "Corporate voting: Evidence from charter amendment proposals," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 5-31, March.
    11. Giannetti, Mariassunta & Laeven, Luc, 2007. "Pension Reform, Ownership Structure, and Corporate Governance: Evidence from Sweden," CEPR Discussion Papers 6489, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Gillan, Stuart L. & Starks, Laura T., 2000. "Corporate governance proposals and shareholder activism: the role of institutional investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 275-305, August.
    13. Ng, Lilian & Wang, Qinghai & Zaiats, Nataliya, 2009. "Firm performance and mutual fund voting," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 2207-2217, December.
    14. Cindy R. Alexander & Mark A. Chen & Duane J. Seppi & Chester S. Spatt, 2009. "The Role of Advisory Services in Proxy Voting," NBER Working Papers 15143, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Stuart L. Gillan & Laura T. Starks, 2007. "The Evolution of Shareholder Activism in the United States," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 19(1), pages 55-73, January.
    16. Jay C. Hartzell & Laura T. Starks, 2003. "Institutional Investors and Executive Compensation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2351-2374, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Randall Morck, 2011. "Finance and Governance in Developing Economies," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 375-406, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Michael S. Weisbach, 2012. "The State of Corporate Governance Research," Springer Books, in: Sabri Boubaker & Bang Dang Nguyen & Duc Khuong Nguyen (ed.), Corporate Governance, edition 127, pages 325-346, Springer.
    2. Nain, Amrita & Yao, Tong, 2013. "Mutual fund skill and the performance of corporate acquirers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 437-456.
    3. Chou, Julia & Ng, Lilian & Wang, Qinghai, 2011. "Are better governed funds better monitors?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 1254-1271.
    4. Claessens, Stijn & Yurtoglu, B. Burcin, 2013. "Corporate governance in emerging markets: A survey," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 1-33.
    5. Aggarwal, Reena & Erel, Isil & Ferreira, Miguel & Matos, Pedro, 2011. "Does governance travel around the world? Evidence from institutional investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 154-181, April.
    6. Morgan, Angela & Poulsen, Annette & Wolf, Jack & Yang, Tina, 2011. "Mutual funds as monitors: Evidence from mutual fund voting," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 914-928, September.
    7. Allayannis, George & Lel, Ugur & Miller, Darius P., 2012. "The use of foreign currency derivatives, corporate governance, and firm value around the world," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 65-79.
    8. Santella, Paolo & Baffi, Enrico & Drago, Carlo & Lattuca, Dino, 2008. "A Comparative Analysis of the Legal Obstacles to Institutional Investor Activism in Europe and in the US," MPRA Paper 8929, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Dressler, Efrat, 2020. "Voice and power: Do institutional shareholders make use of their voting power?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    10. Dasgupta, Amil & Fos, Vyacheslav & Sautner, Zacharias, 2021. "Institutional investors and corporate governance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112114, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Hüttenbrink, Alexander & Oehmichen, Jana & Rapp, Marc Steffen & Wolff, Michael, 2014. "Pay-for-performance – Does one size fit all? A multi-country study of Europe and the United States," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1179-1192.
    12. Gur Aminadav & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Corporate Control around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(3), pages 1191-1246, June.
    13. Mr. Luc Laeven, 2014. "The Development of Local Capital Markets: Rationale and Challenges," IMF Working Papers 2014/234, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Dasgupta, Amil & Zachariadis, Konstantinos, 2011. "Delegated activism and disclosure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 43078, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Dyck, Alexander & Lins, Karl V. & Roth, Lukas & Wagner, Hannes F., 2019. "Do institutional investors drive corporate social responsibility? International evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(3), pages 693-714.
    16. Ugur Lel, 2019. "The role of foreign institutional investors in restraining earnings management activities across countries," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(6), pages 895-922, August.
    17. Laeven, Luc & Chhaochharia, Vidhi, 2008. "Sovereign Wealth Funds: Their Investment Strategies and Performance," CEPR Discussion Papers 6959, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Duan, Ying & Jiao, Yawen & Tam, Kinsun, 2021. "Conflict of interest and proxy voting by institutional investors," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    19. Lel, Ugur, 2012. "Currency hedging and corporate governance: A cross-country analysis," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 221-237.
    20. Ding, Rong & Hou, Wenxuan & Kuo, Jing-Ming & Lee, Edward, 2013. "Fund ownership and stock price informativeness of Chinese listed firms," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 166-185.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business groups; Corporate governance; Corporate law; Emerging markets; Institutional investors; Minority shareholders; Mutual funds; Shareholder activism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • K20 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - General
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7934. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.