Property Right Nature,ownership Structure And Ownership Pledge Motivation Of Controlling Shareholders Of Listed Companies

In recent years,our capital market has developed continuously,and the scale of equity pledge of listed companies has increased year by year.A-share market has almost formed "no shares without pledge" phenomenon.However,the risk of equity pledge can not be underestimated.When the shareholding pledge ratio of the controlling shareholder is high,it is easy to cause the risk of forced liquidation of the pledged stocks.At the same time,too high proportion of equity pledge by controlling shareholders will cause abnormal stock price fluctuations,seriously harm the interests of minority shareholders,and ultimately affect the stable development of the entire capital market.Therefore,how to identify the motivation of the controlling shareholder’s equity pledge,prevent the risk of equity pledge and protect the interests of small and medium investors has become an important research topic in the academic circle.Based on the above research background,this paper firstly combs and summarizes domestic and foreign research literature from three perspectives:propertyright nature,ownership structure and ownership motivation of controlling shareholders.By reviewing the Principal-Agent Theory,Information Asymmetry Theory,Signal Transmission Theory and Control Right Theory,this paper puts forward the relevant research hypothesis of the controlling shareholder’s equity pledge motivation.In this paper,listed companies with equity pledge behavior in A-share market from 2011 to 2021 are selected as research samples,and the controlling shareholders of listed companies are empirically-tested from three dimensions:investment of pledged funds,occupation of funds and ownership structure,including holloping and encroachment,financing support and increasing or maintaining control rights.And from the property nature of the level of group comparative study.In addition,the robustness test was carried out by replacing the explained variables and adjusting the sample period,and the instrumental variable method 2SLS was used to process the models with possible endogeneity problems.Research findings:(1)When the controlling shareholders invest the pledged funds in themselves or a third party,the controlling shareholders are more inclined to seize the interests of minority shareholders through equity pledge;(2)When the controlling shareholder occupies more funds of the pledged firm,the controlling shareholder is more inclined to hollow out the pledged firm through equity pledge;(3)The lower the ownership concentration of the listed company,the more inclined the controlling shareholder is to pledge the ownership in order to obtain funds to increase the ownership to maintain or increase the control right;(4)When the degree of equity checks and balances of listed companies is high,it can weaken the negative effect of equity concentration on controlling shareholders’ equity pledge to strengthen the motivation of control right;(5)The above conclusions are more significant in non-state-owned listed firms.In order to further verify the influence of property right nature and ownership structure on controlling shareholders’ equity pledge motivation,this paper selected all A-share listed firms from 2011 to 2021 as samples,proposed relevant hypotheses on the formation mechanism of controlling shareholders’ equity pledge motivation from three dimensions:property right nature,ownership concentration degree and ownership check degree,and conducted multiple regression test.Then,from the perspective of stock price fluctuations of listed companies,this paper makes an expanded analysis of the motivation of the controlling shareholders’ equity pledge,and makes a grouped empirical test according to the nature of property rights.In addition,the robustness of the empirical results was tested by means of alternative variables,adjusted sample period,subdivided samples and instrumental variable 2SLS.The results show that:(1)in non-stateowned listed companies,controlling shareholders are more inclined to finance through equity pledge;(2)The lower the ownership concentration of the controlling shareholder of the listed company,the more inclined the controlling shareholder is to equity pledge;(3)The lower the equity balance of listed companies,the more inclined the controlling shareholders are to pledge equity;(4)When the stock price of the listed company fluctuates sharply,the controlling shareholder will reduce the willingness of equity pledge for the purpose of stabilizing the stock price;(5)The above conclusions are more significant in non-state-owned listed companies.