The Journal of Finance

International Evidence on the Value of Corporate Diversification

Published: 12/17/2002   |   DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00186

Karl Lins, Henri Servaes

The valuation effect of diversification is examined for large samples of firms in Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom for 1992 and 1994. We find no significant diversification discount in Germany, but a significant diversification discount of 10 percent in Japan and 15 percent in the U.K. Concentrated ownership in the hands of insiders enhances the valuation effect of diversification in Germany, but not in Japan or the U.K. For Japan, only firms with strong links to an industrial group have a diversification discount. These findings suggest that international differences in corporate governance affect the impact of diversification on shareholder wealth.

Ownership Structure, Corporate Governance, and Firm Value: Evidence from the East Asian Financial Crisis

Published: 07/15/2003   |   DOI: 10.1111/1540-6261.00573

Michael L. Lemmon, Karl V. Lins

We use a sample of 800 firms in eight East Asian countries to study the effect of ownership structure on value during the region's financial crisis. The crisis negatively impacted firms' investment opportunities, raising the incentives of controlling shareholders to expropriate minority investors. Crisis period stock returns of firms in which managers have high levels of control rights, but have separated their control and cash flow ownership, are 10–20 percentage points lower than those of other firms. The evidence is consistent with the view that ownership structure plays an important role in determining whether insiders expropriate minority shareholders.

Social Capital, Trust, and Firm Performance: The Value of Corporate Social Responsibility during the Financial Crisis

Published: 03/19/2017   |   DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12505

KARL V. LINS, HENRI SERVAES, ANE TAMAYO

During the 2008–2009 financial crisis, firms with high social capital, as measured by corporate social responsibility (CSR) intensity, had stock returns that were four to seven percentage points higher than firms with low social capital. High‐CSR firms also experienced higher profitability, growth, and sales per employee relative to low‐CSR firms, and they raised more debt. This evidence suggests that the trust between a firm and both its stakeholders and investors, built through investments in social capital, pays off when the overall level of trust in corporations and markets suffers a negative shock.

Private Benefits of Control, Ownership, and the Cross‐listing Decision

Published: 01/23/2009   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01438.x

CRAIG DOIDGE, G. ANDREW KAROLYI, KARL V. LINS, DARIUS P. MILLER, RENÉ M. STULZ

This paper investigates how a foreign firm's decision to cross‐list on a U.S. stock exchange is related to the consumption of private benefits of control by its controlling shareholders. Theory has proposed that when private benefits are high, controlling shareholders are less likely to choose to cross‐list in the United States because of constraints on the consumption of private benefits resulting from such listings. Using several proxies for private benefits related to the control and cash flow ownership rights of controlling shareholders, we find support for this hypothesis with a sample of more than 4,000 firms from 31 countries.