Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Angelo Baglioni
Author-X-Name-First: Angelo
Author-X-Name-Last: Baglioni
Author-Email: angelo.baglioni@unicatt.it
Author-Workplace-Name: DISCE, Università Cattolica


Title: Shareholders' agreements and voting power. Evidence from Italian listed firms 
Abstract: This work provides an empirical investigation of shareholders’ agreements signed in Italy over the last decade. The focus is on the impact of agreements on the voting power (Shapley value) of participants. The evidence shows that agreements produce a remarkable reshuffling of voting power. Two views are confronted. First: agreements allow the largest shareholder to increase his power beyond his own voting rights, exploiting a leverage effect. Second: agreements are a way to share control among a coalition of large shareholders, thus limiting the ability of the first one to extract private benefits of control. The leverage effect seems to prevail at lower levels of ownership concentration, while the shared control view works better at higher levels of ownership concentration. Supermajority rules – a tool to reach a more balanced distribution of power – are more likely to be adopted when the first owner has a larger equity stake.

Length: nn pages 21
Creation-Date: 2008-05

File-URL: http://www.unicatt.it/Istituti/EconomiaFinanza/Quaderni/ief0081.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
File-Function: First version, 2008
Number: ief0081
Classification-JEL: G3
Keywords: Corporate governance; shareholders’ agreements; large shareholder; voting power; one-share-one-vote.
Handle: RePEc:ctc:serie3:ief0081