The Impact Of Minority Shareholders’ Attendance At Shareholders’ General Meeting On Corporate Leverage

The high leverage ratio of enterprises has always been the main problem of the survival and development of enterprises,and "deleveraging" is regarded as the breakthrough and primary reform task of supply-side structural reform.In the company’s internal governance,small and medium-sized shareholders have enhanced their sense of ownership and actively exercised their voting rights to protect their legitimate rights and interests,rather than passive obedience.The participation of minority shareholders in corporate governance at the shareholders’ meeting plays a key role in ensuring the operation and development of enterprises,and also affects the decision-making behavior of corporate decision-makers.What is the impact of minority shareholders’ participation in shareholders’ meetings on the leverage ratio of enterprises? Can it effectively reduce corporate leverage? How does it work? Is there a difference in effect for enterprises of different ownership systems and regional enterprises? The answers to the above questions provide new evidence on the impact of minority shareholders’ participation in corporate governance,and expand the literature on corporate leverage ratio.Based on the existing research on the participation of minority shareholders in corporate governance and corporate leverage,this paper puts forward a theoretical hypothesis,uses the data of listed companies on the A-share main board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2015 to 2021,manually collects the number of on-site participants and online voting of minority shareholders attending the shareholders’ meeting,uses the two-way fixed effect model to test the impact of minority shareholders’ attendance at the shareholders’ meeting on the leverage ratio of enterprises,and conducts heterogeneity analysis and mechanism testing.The empirical results show that:(1)Small and medium-sized shareholders attend the shareholders’ meeting,participate in corporate governance,exert a supervisory effect,and reduce the leverage ratio of enterprises.(2)The results of heterogeneity analysis show that the supervision effect of minority shareholders attending shareholders’ meetings is more significant for non-state-owned enterprises and enterprises in the eastern region.(3)The results of the mechanism test show that the participation of minority shareholders at the shareholders’ general meeting affects the leverage ratio of the enterprise by restraining the encroachment of the interests of the controlling shareholders.The research conclusion of this paper provides new evidence for the participation of minority shareholders in corporate governance,enriches the influencing factors of corporate leverage ratio,and provides new ideas and directions for enterprises to reduce corporate leverage ratio,which is helpful for enterprises to maintain a reasonable level of leverage ratio,promote the healthy development of enterprises,and stabilize the financial market.