Publication Date: 2022/03/12
Abstract: Financial theory takes it for given that the ownership structure is diffused (Berles and Means, 1932). Authors such as Gadhoum (1999, 2015) evidenced that this is may be true only in America. In Canada, like many other countries, the ownership is highly concentrated mainly in the hands of the two largest owners, who are most usually wealthy families. They used pyramidal structure, cross-holdings, and multiple voting rights as the most practical ways to attain their goals and to entrench themselves. The minority holders cannot afford financially and logistically to create a sustainable coalition to tackle the pressure exerted by the blockholders on the decision-making like dividend distribution. The aim of this paper is to show that large shareholders polarize indeed the control of the company to their interest. Cash payout was used in this paper as a tool of usurpation of the small owners. Other mechanisms used are not yet well studied, such as the benefits they get from the internal capital market they create in their conglomerates (like the keiretsu in Japan) and the tax shield they use within their puzzling pyramidal structure. The question that arises is how the capital market regulations don't contain this situation to protect the minority shareholders and monitor capital markets' efficiency for a more robust economy. Is it a question of politics resulting from lobbying? Further research should address this issue.
Keywords: Large shareholders, Minority Owners, Expropriation, Polarization of Voting Rights, Entrenchment.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6348189
PDF: https://ijirst.demo4.arinfotech.co/assets/upload/files/IJISRT22NOV483_(1).pdf
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