title: Corporate Governance in China: An Empirical Study of Listed Firms
Creators: name: Hovey, Martin
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2005
Subjects: subject: Corporate governance(China)
subject: state-owned enterprise sector
subject: China's future economic prosperity
subject: managing the change of ownership
subject: gradualist approach to change

description: Corporate governance has gained considerable prominence in the last decade as it has become a much more widely discussed and debated issue. The debate as to which model of corporate governance China should adopt continues as China forges a new era of interaction with the global market, especially since its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. The state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector in China is a significant contributing factor in China's endeavour to continue to develop its economy, provide employment and reduce poverty. Therefore, the success of SOE reform is important to China's future economic prosperity and ability to contend with social justice issues. The commencement of the reform process began in the late 1970s and many SOEs have attained significant progress in some important areas. However, all too many SOEs experience poor overall performance. Thus, the consequence of the corporate governance model and corporate structure selected will be considerable, especially as the country's market economy gains momentum. This thesis contributes to the ongoing body of work relating to corporate governance in China, and some clear results have been found. It also reviews the institutional setting in China and elements of the corporate governance literature in detail. As the ownership of firms is considered to be one of the key elements to enhance corporate governance, the empirical study considers issues relating to changes in ownership, concentration and ownership structures. It conducts an empirical study of the ownership and performance of listed corporations in China and based on these analyses, the thesis provides policy recommendations as to which model of corporate governance may best be suited to China during this transitional phase. The findings suggest that the ownership structure is a key element to enhancing corporate governance in China. The wealth affects of changes in listed firm ownership, which for the most part had the effect of reducing state ownership, were found to be positive. Concentration ownership structures per se were not found to enhance listed firm performance. The most significant findings were the following. Firstly, that institutional ownership, through the Legal Person holding companies, have a positive bearing on listed firm performance and thus by implication, upon improving corporate governance. Secondly, medium levels of Legal Person ownership were found to be the most effective. Thirdly, foreign institutions and individual investors were found to be positively correlated to performance. Similar results were found for offshore ownership, but to a lessor extent. Conversely, state ownership was found to be negatively correlated to performance. Other issues that were identified in the empirical analysis are that size does matter, in that large firms were found not to perform as well as smaller firms. Leverage appears to matter also, as highly leveraged firms were found not to perform well. The industry in which a firm operates was also found to have an affect on performance. The policy recommendations are based on the findings and observations of this thesis. The assumption is made that the present gradualist approach and regime will continue. As state ownership is shown to have a negative bearing on listed firm performance, the recommendation is that the state, at its various levels, should divest its holdings. This could be achieved through a privatization program in which the state denationalises a large proportion of its holdings. One of the keys would then be managing the change of ownership. Based on the observations and findings of this study, it is recommended that a privatization program should be instigated that supports blockholders and institutions, and does not focus purely on dispersing large proportions of holdings to diverse small shareholders. In addition, mergers and acquisitions that embrace economic efficiency should be encouraged and supported. The empirical study demonstrates that the ultimate ownership and control of tradeable shares ought to be channelled to pension funds, private institutional investors that should be encouraged to take strong stakes in the firms, to strategic investors, especially minority blockholders, and a proportion to international investors. This strategy would be in China's best interests in its present stage of development.