Ownership concentration, investor protection and economic performance in public agroindustrial companies with the listing on warsaw stock exchange

Abstract

The study aimed to identify the presence / absence of ownership concentration in agro-industrial companies in Ukraine and to investigate the possible impact of these processes on the economic performance of companies. We have proven that there is a significant level of ownership concentration among analysed companies in both groups UX and UA. Although there are exceptions, there is a general tendency to hold a large share of equity instruments by the founders or major owners. We describe this phenomenon through a twin agency problem, arguing that such a large share of power concentration serves as a substitute for a weak environment for protecting investor rights. Concentration of property is the bulwark from unwanted interventions from both third parties and from state rulers. The study has found no significant relationship between ownership concentration and several indicators used as proxy for economic performance, namely Net cash flow, EBIDTA, Profit/loss before tax, Tobin’s Q. Our findings indicate that concentration of ownership does not affect the economic performance of analysed companies, regardless of whether we take for the analysis the accounting indicators (Profit) or market-based indicators (Tobin’s Q).