1,721,066 research outputs found
Dual class stock unifications and shareholders' wealth expropriation"
No full textAn increasing number of firms with dual class shares are deciding to unify their sharesaround the world. In the most common type of stock unification a non-voting share can be converted into a voting share. In most countries either the price differential between the two classes of shares is low or a form of compensation for voting shareholders is provided. Italian stock unifications see the highest value of voting rights and no form of compensation for voting shareholders. I observe the 43 Italian stock unifications made in the 1974-2003 period and I develop a model that quantifies their wealth effects on the two classes of shares. Stock unifications can be a form of expropriation of minority voting shareholders, as confirmed by five case studies where majority shareholders hedge or even take advantage of such unifications by engaging in the following activities some months before the unification decision: buying relevant blocks of nv-shares, selling voting shares or approving stock option plans on nv-shares. At the stock unification announcement the price of a voting share in the five case studies dropped by a minimum of –4.26%, to a maximum of –10.41% confirming that dual class unifications can expropriate minority-voting shareholders to the benefit of the controlling shareholder and “lucky” minority nv-shareholders
Private and Social Benefits in Dual Class Share Unifications – Evidence from Italy
No full textAn increasing number of firms with dual class shares are deciding to unify their shares around the world. Though the return to “one share one vote” is usually considered good news, the unification can give rise to a wealth transfer between the two classes of shares, especially in the presence of high voting premia and no form of compensation to voting shareholders. These conditions characterize most of Italian dual class unification (DCUs)
made in the 1982-2005 period. Italian DCUs, differently from any other country, gave rise to a significantly negative reaction of the voting shares and no significant variation in the firm’s
overall value. The actual reactions on the two classes of shares also appear well aligned with what expected from a wealth-transfer framework developed in the paper. Changes in firm’s value are positively correlated with larger ownership of the largest and second largest shareholders, while negative correlated with high voting premia and large fractions of nonvoting equity Unification as a new form of (minority voting) shareholders’ expropriation is further confirmed by five case studies where the majority shareholder buys relevant blocks of nv-shares, sells voting shares or approves stock option plans on nv-shares just some months before the unification announcement
Expropriations, Unifications and Corporate Governance in Italy
No full textExtant literature has usually argued that firms that unify dual class shares are likely to increase shareholder value. We examine the universe of Italian dual class unifications over the 1974-2005
period and show that the unification process is considerably more complex than described in prior literature. In over half the universe, Italian voting shareholders are not compensated for allowing their voting rights to be diluted, and, not surprisingly, experience a price decline at the announcement of unifications. While non-voting shares appreciate in value at the announcement there is little evidence that the unification increases total firm value. We argue that share unifications are designed to benefit the controlling shareholders and, in several cases, controlling voting shareholders use the unification to expropriate wealth from minority shareholders
Expropriation through unification? Wealth effects of dual class share unifications in Italy
No full textAn increasing number of firms with dual class shares are deciding to unify their shares around the world. Though the return to one share-one vote system is usually considered good news for voting shareholders, the unification can give rise to a wealth transfer between the two classes of shares, especially in the presence of high voting premia and no form of compensation to voting shareholders. These conditions characterize most of Italian dual class unification (DCUs) made in the 1982-2005 period. Different from any other country, in Italian DCUs, voting shares earn significantly negative returns Changes in firm’s value are positively correlated with larger ownership of the largest and second largest shareholders, and negatively correlated with high voting premia and large fractions of non-voting equity. We also provide more detailed evidence on five cases where the majority shareholder buys relevant blocks of non-voting shares, sells voting shares or approves stock option plans on non-voting shares a few months before the unification announcement
Why are shareholders not paid to give up their voting privileges? Unique evidence from Italy
No full textDual-class share unifications have typically been argued to be beneficial for voting shareholders, who are usually compensated for the loss of their superior voting privileges. However, no covenants exist that make this compensation mandatory for voting shareholders. In this paper, we examine a subset of dual class share unifications from Italy where, in the main, voting
shareholders are not offered any compensation in lieu of the loss of their superior voting rights. We present a simple model describing the conditions under which the controlling voting shareholder will choose not to offer compensation to minority voting shareholders as part of a share unification. Our empirical results support the model predictions
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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