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Before it was fully nationalized in 1945, the Banque de France was a listed company that distributed dividends to its shareholders and was listed on the Paris stock exchange. By comparing with other stocks and indexes, I show that, in spite of large earnings, Banque de France’s stock was a lackluster but popular investment. By examining the distribution of profits between the state and ordinary shareholders, I show that the state began to exert an influence over the Bank well before its nationalization, in the nineteenth century, amounting to a stealthy takeover. I then go on to analyze the Bank’s formal governance framework and the power of its regents (directors). Using a novel method to compute the shareholders’ statistical distribution, I conclude that small new shareholders who were less sophisticated bought predominantly shares from old larger shareholders. Eventually, most of the shareholders were “petit-bourgeois” passive rentiers who accepted the mediocre performance and kept reelecting the regents. I conclude by saying that the power of the 200 largest shareholders (“200 families”) was a political myth with little foundation in reality.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship among ownership structure, information disclosure and benefits of control under Lab‐experimental frame, based on the ownership structure in China's stock market.

Theoretical Shapley value of shareholders was used as the representative of control right, and benefits of control in different experimental treatments were studied.

Experimental results show: first, more counterbalance of shareholders' control rights, less benefits of their control right. Accordingly, more chance to form core alliance for the major shareholder with small shareholders, less chance for them to get control right; second, the effect of information on benefits of control are mainly reflected in forming and maintaining the alliance; third, Shapley value of the major shareholder and the information determine the alliance type; fourth, control premium may be the cost of keeping the major shareholder's benefits safe and fifth, imperfect information is not always bad, concealing information partly can improve the distribution efficiency of a corporation.

The paper provides experimental analysis of the behavioral logic behind the benefits of control, which would help to explain the relationship among ownership structure, information disclosure and benefits of control.

This study Investigates Shareholders' value adjustment in response to financial institutions (FIs) merger announcements in the immediate event window and in the extended event window. This study also investigates accounting measures performance, comparison of post-merger to pre-merger, including several cash flow measures and not just profitability measures, as the empirical literature review suggests. Finally, the authors examine FIs mergers orientations of diversification and focus create more value for shareholders (in the immediate announcement window and several months afterward) and/or generates better cash flows, profitability and less credit risk.

This study examines FIs merger effect on bidders’ shareholder’s value and on their observed performance. This examination deploys three techniques simultaneously: a) an event study analysis, to estimate and calculate abnormal returns (ARs) and cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) in the narrow windows of the merger announcement, b) buy and hold event study analysis, to estimate ARs in the wider window of the event, +50 to +230 days after the merger announcement and c) an observed performance analysis, of financial and capital efficiency measures before and after the merger announcement; return on equity, liquidity, cost to income ratio, capital to total assets ratio, net loans to total loans, credit risk, loans to deposits ratio, other expenses and total assets, economic value addition, weighted average cost of capital and return on invested capital. Deal criteria of value, mega-deals, strategic orientation (as in Ansoff (1980) growth strategies), acquiring bank size and payment method are set as individually as control variables.

Results show that FIs mergers destroy share value for the bidding firms pursuing a market penetration strategy. Market development and product development strategies enable shareholders’ value creation in short and long horizons. Diversification strategies do not influence bidding shareholders’ value. Local bank to bank mergers create shareholders’ value and enhance liquidity and economic value in the short run. Bank to bank cross border mergers create value for bidders’ in the long term but are associated with high costs and higher risks.

A significant advancement over the current literature is in assessing mergers, not only for bank bidders but also for the three pillars FIs of the financial sector; banks, real-estate companies and investment companies mergers. It is an improvement over current finance literature because it deploys two different strategies in the analysis. At a univariate level, shareholder value creation and market reaction to merger announcements are examined over short (−5 or +5 days) and long (+230 days) windows of the event. Followed by regressing, the resultant CARs and BHARs over financial performance variables at the multivariate level.

The purpose of this paper is to shed lights on both economic and social impacts associated to the increasing amount of western companies acquired by multinationals from emerging countries. Focussing on the Italian context, its main intent is to analyze changes in targets’ performance and capability to contribute to stakeholders’ wealth to assess the business and social viability of this type of deal.

Operations of mergers and acquisitions (M & As) were identified through Zephyr (Bureau VanDijk’s database). Only acquisitions of a controlling interest were considered for a total of eight case studies. Financial Statements and Management Reports over a eight-year period have been analyzed to understand the rationale of the deal and to assess financial performance and company social impact before and after the merger.

Results suggest that foreign investors mainly search for know-how and technical expertise and their arrival does not lead to better financial performance. Only one target records profits. Four companies are still controlled by Indian investors while the other four have been dismissed. Nevertheless Indian investors are not destroying profitable organizations as these were recording negative results already before the merger. With reference to value added distribution, acquisitions do not reduce local stakeholders’ wealth for the benefits of shareholders. Jobs are preserved and valued added is mainly distributed to employees. Great difficulties in achieving the expected value resulting from synergies emerge.

Observations emerging from this explorative study are limited to the case studies analyzed while it could be important to enlarge the number of companies to investigate, including targets acquired by Russian, Chinese and Brazilian investors. Moreover, additional information could be obtained from interviews with top managers to reveal how they interpret the merger’s success or failure. Also interviews with local stakeholders like suppliers, clients, representatives of employees and local institutions could be of great importance as they can help identify their specific point of view about the social and economic impact of foreign investors’ arrival.

With reference to the public debate on the increasing number of European companies sold to foreign investors, research findings indicate that FDI from emerging economies do not necessarily lead to job losses or target’s closure. Indian investors are interested in brand, knowledge and other intangible assets (like Chinese ones). However they do not relocate production or expertise abroad. Some target companies record higher investments financed by the new shareholder, indicating that the arrival of new investors owing a large amount of money to invest in financial distressed Italian companies, can be beneficial to the local economy.

Most literature studies M & As from the buyer’s perspective to assess if shareholders’ value is created (Tuch and O’Sullivan, 2007; Meglio, 2009; Dauber, 2012). On the contrary this research adopts the target’s and stakeholders’ perspective, in order to measure the value created and distributed to the territory. Moreover it focuses on unlisted companies, while most studies deal with publicly traded companies (Meglio and Risberg, 2010; Meglio and Risberg, 2012b). Lastly it enriches M & A mainstream literature, which usually adopts a positivistic mindset and rely on statistical analysis, by adopting a qualitative approach based on case study analysis.

The purpose of this study is to study the evolution of French corporate governance law in light of collibration approach and bring statistical evidence from French Companies Executive Compensation practices.

The study has used mixed methods. In the first part, the authors analyzed the French laws in the light of collibration. In the second part of the study, the authors used unbalanced panel data to test the hypotheses related to executive remuneration based on the theoretical underpinning of collibration. Data for 173 firms listed in the Euronext Paris Index is collected from the Bloomberg database. Seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) analysis is performed to investigate the impact of collibration on the governance disclosure of French-listed firms.

SUR results indicate that board size plays a significant role in the governance disclosure before collibration. However, the collibration model is found to be more effective in ensuring the desired level of governance disclosure. Under the collibration approach, executive remuneration, frequency of board meetings, executive directors in the compensation committee and independent directors play a significant role in governance disclosure. Board size, however, does not have a substantial impact on governance disclosure after the adoption of collibration mechanism.

Results provided by this study can allow regulators to improve corporate disclosure regime in France, which could play a vital role in safeguarding the interest of stakeholder.

The authors study the impact of collibration on the extent of governance disclosure in the context of France. Empirical evidence on the implication of collibration as governance mechanisms to enhance stakeholder confidence is rare and allows this study to make a unique contribution to the governance literature.

Traditional statistical methods to study the financial performance of any industry have many barriers and limitations in terms of the statistical distribution of the financial ratios, and, in particular, it considers only its positive values of it. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the financial performance of 24 Indian life insurance companies for the period from 2013 to 2016 using Grey relational analysis (GRA) proposed by Deng (1982) that accommodates the negative values in the analysis.

Financial performance of 24 Indian life insurance companies for the years from 2013–2014 to 2015–2016 is examined using a total of 14 indicators from capital adequacy ratios, liquidity ratios, operating ratios and profitability ratios (PR). The methodology used is GRA to obtain the Grey grades to rank the performance indicators, where higher relational grade shows better financial performance, and a lower score depicts the scope for improving the performance.

The results rank the insurance companies according to their financial performance in which Shriram insurance stands first with higher relational grade score, followed by the companies like IDBI Insurance, Sahara Insurance and Life Insurance Corporation of India. The main finding is that PR which have negative values are playing a crucial role in determining the financial performance of Indian life insurance companies.

This study has far-reaching practical implications in twofold: first, for the Indian life insurance industry, they have to concentrate more on PR for better financial health and, second, for any financial performance analysis, ignoring negative value ratios produce biased inference and GRA can be used for better inference.

This study is the first attempt to evaluate the financial performance of Indian life insurance using the GRA methodology. The advantage of GRA is that there is no restrictions on the statistical distribution of the data and it also accommodates the negative values, whereas all the other traditional methods insist on the statistical distribution of data, and, more importantly, they cannot handle negative values in the performance analysis.

Purpose – This study explores the probability of expropriation of minority shareholders by controlling shareholders in the form of CEO compensation under an imperfect governance institution by using a novel Chinese dataset over 2001–2010.

Design/methodology/approach – We use a direct method to gauge controlling shareholders’ tunneling and expropriation of minority shareholders, and we present a simple model to link corporate governance and the degree of entrenchment by the largest shareholder. We use both Logit and Probit models to predict the likelihood of tunneling and use two-stage least square (2SLS) regression to address the endogeneity issues.

Findings – There are significant deterioration effects between controlling shareholder's tunneling and firm performance. Firms with more tunneling activities typically have larger controlling ownership, greater evidence of state control, less balance of power among large shareholders, and weaker board characteristics.

Research limitations/implications – The positive relationship between controlling shareholders’ tunneling and executive compensation implies that the controlling shareholder might divert personal benefits from the public firms at the expense of minority shareholders.

Originality/value – We focus on the effects of corporate governance restructuring on executive compensation and controlling shareholders’ tunneling in the Chinese context, and we also investigate whether these effects are stronger with the involvement of state ownership. We empirically address the issues between executive compensation and expropriation of minority shareholders.

The existence of controlling shareholders creates a remarkable difference between the corporate governance structures of Chinese firms and those of western firms. Despite the increasing importance of controlling shareholders, it remains disputable whether they are playing the “tunneling” roles or the “governance” roles. Therefore, more research is needed on what roles controlling shareholders are playing and how they play their roles. Previous empirical studies document a common phenomenon that directors play dual roles both on the board and in the top management team. Because of information asymmetry, the board of directors may not be able to perform its supervisory and strategic decision-making functions. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate whether controlling shareholders participate in firm management by appointing the executive directors and examine the economic consequences of controlling shareholder involvement.

In the empirical tests, the authors use the split share structure reform in China as a natural experiment. Using the data from Chinese listed firms between 2001 and 2015 and difference-in-differences analysis, the authors examine the impact of the split share structure reform on the executive directors of controlling shareholders and the governance effect of controlling shareholders’ appointing executive directors to the management.

The authors find that controlling shareholders get involved in firm management by appointing executive directors to strengthen the supervision and incentives of managers. The authors also find that firms exhibit a lower level of earnings management and enhance and higher pay-performance sensitivity after controlling shareholders appoint executive directors to the top management team.

As the natural experiment of the split share structure reform enables us to mitigate endogeneity, the authors investigate the channels through, which controlling shareholders get involved in firm management from the unique perspective of executive director appointment. The study expands the literature on corporate governance and board functions. The findings provide new insights to the effect of controlling shareholder governance and casts light on a new way for controlling shareholders of Chinese firms to participate in firm management – by appointing executive directors.

The origins of financial ratio analysis can be traced back to the first decade of the twentieth century. It began with the development of a single ratio, the current ratio, for a single purpose—the evaluation of credit worthiness. Today ratio analysis involves the use of several ratios by a variety of users including credit lenders, credit rating agencies, investors and management.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate drivers of economic performance with environmental management aspects and core managerial functions of the Indian coal mining industry.

For this research paper, primary and secondary data have been used. The primary data were collected through a questionnaire survey which was distributed in the four subsidiaries of Coal India Limited. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were tested by appropriate statistical techniques. Further, one-sample t-test and multiple linear regression analysis have been used for data analysis.

Testing of hypotheses reveals that there is a high level of integration of environmental management aspects with the seven core managerial functions, namely, production process, distribution process, beneficiation process, quality issues, stakeholders’ interest, health and safety and corporate strategy. Further, the paper identified that there is a positive association between integration of environmental aspects with core functions and the four drivers of economic performance and it is strongly associated with societal-related and risk-related drivers of economic performance. But it is less strongly associated with image-related and efficiency-related drivers of economic performance.

This paper focuses on integrating the environmental management and core functions with key drivers of economic performance in coal mining industry which is one of the most polluting industries of the world. The limitation of the paper is that it is very specific and limited to the coal mining industry.

The paper contributes to the existing work by designing a framework which identifies the key drivers of economic performance and integrating it with the environmental management system of the organisation.