 Do managers seek control and entrenchment?Paul Borochin and John D. Knopf Journal of Corporate Finance, 2021, vol. 67, issue C Abstract: A unique dataset of post-IPO thrifts with heterogeneous initial insider ownership allows us to use revealed preferences to determine the level of ownership insiders believe to be optimal. We find strong evidence that insider ownership converges to the 20% to 30% range, whether insiders begin with diffuse or concentrated ownership. This range of ownership has been found consistent with entrenchment and control in the literature. Our results are robust to a battery of variables related to insider ownership such as moral hazard, adverse selection, market timing, insider characteristics, and firm characteristics. Furthermore, we find that managers with diffuse ownership accumulate shares most aggressively during the period of regulatory anti-takeover protection, consistent with an entrenchment motive. We find that managers with above-average pay are more likely to seek higher ownership, consistent with the existence of private benefits of control. Finally, we find that insider ownership determines equity issuance, leverage, and share liquidity in ways consistent with expected accumulation or reduction in insider ownership for control purposes. Keywords: Thrifts; Corporate governance; Insider ownership; Executive compensation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:corfin:v:67:y:2021:i:c:s0929119920302509 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2020.101806 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Corporate Finance is currently edited by A. Poulsen and J. Netter More articles in Journal of Corporate Finance from Elsevier |
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