Empirical Research On Pyramid Holding Structure And Operating Performance Of State-Owned Enterprises

Since the1990s, the pyramid shareholding structure’s influence on the operating performance of listed companies has attracted many attentions of the scholars. More than eighty-five percent of Chinese listed companies adopt the pyramid shareholding structure, the state-owned holding listed companies accounted for seventy percent. At present, the state-owned holding listed companies still play a dominant role in Chinese economy, but their operating performance is not optimistic, the ownership structure’s impact on state-owned holding listed companies operating performance cannot be ignored. This paper makes a comprehensive inspection on the influence of pyramid shareholding structures’characteristics on the state-owned listed companies. So this paper has important theoretical and practical significance.This paper selects1444listed companies, three years dates as the research sample. According to the nature of property rights and two rights separation degree, the companies are divided into four categories:state-owned separate type of pyramid shareholding structure, state-owned non-separate type of pyramid shareholding structure, non-state-owned separate type of pyramid shareholding structure and non-state-owned non separate type of pyramid shareholding structure. Then focus on analyzing the former two groups of pyramid shareholding structure’s characteristic variables’impact on business performance. The results of descriptive statistical analysis show that:First, compared with non-state-owned listed companies, the operating performance of the state-owned companies is worse. And second, compared with non-separate companies, the operating performance of separate companies is a little better. Further regression analysis’results show that:first, the control rights of ultimate controlling shareholders have a significant positive correlation to the operating performance of the state-owned companies. Second, for the separate companies, the cash-flow rights have a significant negative correlation to the operating performance of the state-owned companies because of the predatory cash dividends. Third, as a result of the interaction of control rights and cash-flow rights, the separate degree has no significant correlation to the operating performance of the state-owned companies. Forth, the hierarchy and control chains’number have different influence on the operating performance of separate companies and non-separate companies.The conclusion of this paper is different from the conclusions of previous similar studies because this paper distinguishes the separate-pyramid shareholding structures and the non-separate pyramid shareholding structures. In addition, the economic crisis is also influence the sample data. Of course, this paper also has some limitations:first, the regional marketing degree will also affect the operating performance, but this paper hasn’t taken this factor into account.Second, because of my intellectual ability, this paper hasn’t analyzed why the two rights separation is not significantly affected the operating performance.