Have the Private Benefits in Italian Firms Decreased？

The topic of the paper is the estimate of the benefit of control, according to the Barclay and Holderness method. The reference system of this research is Italy, given that the empirical evidence of the past which had underlined private benefits particularly high among Italian companies and the reference period is 1999-2007. The idea of this research is to demonstrate that, since the Legislative Decree No. 58 of February 24, 1998 （Consolidated Law on Finance, henceforth Consolidated Law）, which has significantly changed the protection of minority shareholders, in Italian, the intensity of private benefits has on average declined sharply. To this end, considering the results of the empirical researches on periods pre-1998 and at the turn of the Consolidated Law, the paper provides evidence that the improvement of minority shareholder protection already shown by these researches is further accentuated over the years, because of the effects that the new regulatory framework has produced. In fact, the basic assumption is that the important laws, as Consolidate Law, require several years to produce the desired results in full. This idea is supported by the findings of research that show an average percentage of private benefits dropped to five percent of the capital. Hence, the investigation is extended to the demonstration of comparability of this estimation with other estimations quoted in literature, verifying the statistical significance of the correlations between the measures estimated and the variables considered as determinants in much of the literature.

Private Benefits of Control,Growth Opportunities and Investor Protection

We develop a model to illustrate that controlling shareholders choose the level of investor protection that maximizes their own interests. Controlling shareholders in companies with complicated control structures can easily extract private benefits and are thus reluctant to enhance investor protection which would necessitate increased transparency. In contrast, controlling shareholders in companies with valuable growth opportunities are willing to improve investor protection so that they can benefit from the increased value resulting from the lower cost of capital. We test this prediction using firm-level data in China. The results show that the level of investor protection increases with decreases in control structure opacity and increases in growth opportunities. The correlation is more significant for enforcement than for the mechanisms of investor protection.

The Private Benefits of Corporate Control:Evidence from China

By analyzing block share transfers in China during 1999-2006,this study provides estimates of the private benefits of corporate control in China.We find that those controlling blocks are usually priced at a significant positive premium compared to those comparable non-controlling blocks.The benefits of corporate control vary with shareholders structure,firm characteristics and institutional variables.In particular,targets with a high intangible asset ratio have less benefits of control,cross-listing in B or H shares curbs the extract of private benefits and companies acquired by private firms are associated with higher private benefits.Moreover,it is found that benefits of control are negatively associated with market economy and factor market development index.We argue that firms with higher private benefits experience more tunneling activities by their controlling shareholders.