The Governance of Canadian Traded Firms: An Analysis of the Ultimate Ownership Structure (original) (raw)

2007: A Canadian Corporate Ownership Survey

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2008

This study documents a decline in the levels of corporate ownership concentration between 1996 and 2007. When compared to previous studies, the incidence of ownership stakes of 20% or larger has decreased form 60% to 41% of the total population of publicly listed Canadian firms. Regional disparities among provinces remain important. Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia have the most widely-held firms, while Quebec and Atlantic Canada show the most concentrated corporate ownership patterns. The interpretation of these results requires a complex understanding of historical, demographic, cultural, political and institutional factors.

Separation of Ownership from Control and Acquiring Firm Performance: The Case of Family Ownership in Canada

Journal of Business Finance <html_ent glyph="@amp;" ascii="&"/> Accounting, 2006

This study investigates the relationship between ownership structure and acquiring firm performance. A large proportion of Canadian public companies have controlling shareholders (families) that often exercise control over voting rights while holding a small fraction of the cash flow rights. This is achieved through the concurrent use of dual class voting shares and stock pyramids. Many suggest that these ownership structures involve larger agency costs than those imposed by dispersed ownership structures and that they distort corporate decisions with respect to investment choices such as acquisitions. We find that average acquiring firm announcement period abnormal returns for our sample of 327 Canadian transactions are positive over the 1998-2002 period. Cash deals, acquisitions of unlisted targets and cross-border deals have a positive impact on value creation. Governance mechanisms (outside block-holders, unrelated directors and small board size) also have a positive influence on the acquiring firm performance. Further, the positive abnormal returns are greater for family firms. We do not find that separation of ownership and control has a negative impact on performance. These results suggest that, contrary to other jurisdictions offering poor minority shareholder protection or poor corporate governance, separation of control and ownership is not viewed as leading to value destroying mergers and acquisitions, i.e., market participants do not perceive families as using M&A to obtain private benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. We do find a nonmonotonic relationship between ownership level and acquiring firm abnormal returns. Ownership of a majority of the cash flow rights has a negative impact on announcement returns. This is consistent with the view that large shareholders may undertake less risky projects as their wealth invested in the firm increases.

Challenges to the Citadel: A Brief Overview of Recent Trends in Canadian Corporate Governance

1994

Politicians, bureaucrats, owners, managers and employees are becoming increasingly concerned with the capacity of Canadian corporations to survive and prosper in the twenty-first century. By and large, the attention focused on competitiveness has developed from the rapid international integration of goods, capital and service markets. This integration has resulted in the creation of a new borderless world, in which consumer preferences reign supreme and in which those corporations that fail to anticipate, shape and respond to these preferences with cost-and quality-competitive products face certain failure. Concern over the survival of national firms commands widespread societal attention because of the dependency of many core public policies on the economic surplus generated by robust private markets. Given the focus on globalization and competitiveness, it is not at all surprising that academics have expended considerable energy identifying and analyzing the determinants of national economic success in this new international order. Although the composition of the basket of favoured policies varies from scholar to scholar, most accord at least some importance to the quality of the system of corporate governance that obtains in a given country. Tracking the modern use of this term, most scholars look beyond the mere operation of a firm's formal governance apparatus (i. e., the board of directors) and consider how a wide range of market (e.g., capital, product, managerial and takeover markets), legal (e.g., derivative and personal suits) and political (e.g., shareholder voting) devices combine to discipline managerial behaviour. Disciplines Disciplines Law Comments Comments

The rise and fall of the widely held firm: A history of corporate ownership in Canada

A panel of corporate ownership data, stretching back to 1902, shows that the Canadian corporate sector began the century with a predominance of large pyramidal corporate groups controlled by wealthy families or individuals. By mid-century, widely held firms predominated. But, from the 1970s on, pyramidal groups controlled by wealthy families and individuals resurge, restoring a situation similar to that a century earlier. Institutional factors underlying this resurgence are shown to have antecedents deep in the country's colonial past. Abstract A panel of corporate ownership data, stretching back to 1902, shows that the Canadian corporate sector began the century with a predominance of large pyramidal corporate groups controlled by wealthy families or individuals. By mid-century, widely held firms predominated. But, from the 1970s on, pyramidal groups controlled by wealthy families and individuals resurge, restoring a situation similar to that a century earlier. Institutional factors underlying this resurgence are shown to have antecedents deep in the country's colonial past.

Power of ultimate controlling owners: A survey of Canadian landscape

Journal of Management and Governance, 2006

This study highlights the ownership structure of 1120 Canadian listed firms. The chains of ownership and control are traced back to the ultimate controlling owners, and related to some corporate features. Families are the most prevalent type of controlling shareholder. Pyramids, multiple classes of shares and cross-holdings are used to gain control, and hence, a significant separation of ownership and control is achieved. The study also provides some evidence that the role of the second ultimate owners, which is to weaken the channels that lead to expropriation, is not effective in Canada. The findings are compared to those of previous empirical ownership studies on the US, Western Europe and East Asia.

Ownership structure, large inside/outside shareholders, and firm performance: evidence from Canada

Corporate Ownership and Control, 2006

This study gathers additional evidence on the association between ownership concentration and firm performance, as measured by the firm’s Q ratio. Using panel data from a sample of 159 Canadian public firms over a three-year period, I focus on the distinction between large inside shareholders, who directly participate in the management of the firm, and large outside shareholders, who do not. I examine whether direct and indirect monitoring on the part of large shareholders has an impact on the association between ownership concentration and firm performance. Along with the distinction between large inside and outside shareholders, this study also investigates whether concentration of voting rights is associated to firm performance, and whether the identity of the owner affects this association. The findings suggest that large inside shareholdings tend to be negatively associated to firm performance, while no association is found in firms with a majority of large outside shareholding...