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This paper shows that open market block trading can provide a link between private benefits of control enjoyed by large shareholders and the ?voting premium?, i.e. the price difference between voting and non-voting shares. We first demonstrate in a microstructure model with informed traders and short-selling constraint that the trading activity of blockholders translates into a spread between the prices of voting and non-voting shares. In contrast to the extant theory, this model can explain the voting premium in the absence of corporate takeovers. In the empirical part of the paper, we show for a comprehensive sample of German dual-class companies that large trades occur more often in voting shares than in non-voting shares, and that the block trading activity in voting shares is strongly correlated with the voting premium. Moreover, the effect of the ownership structure on the voting premium becomes insignificant once we control for the block trading activity in voting shares.

Weltweit diskutieren Wissenschaftler und Politiker sowie Vertreter von Wettbewerbsbehörden und Finanzmarktregulierern die Bedeutung indirekter Unternehmensverflechtungen über institutionelle Anleger für den Wettbewerb zwischen den verflochtenen Unternehmen. Das Risikopotenzial ergibt sich daraus, dass aus Sicht eines Miteigentümers ein Wettbewerb auf Kosten eines Konkurrenten unattraktiver wird, falls der Miteigentümer auch bei diesem Konkurrenten beteiligt ist. Die erwogenen Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung dieses Risikopotenzials mögen bislang hinsichtlich ihrer Effektivität und Umsetzbarkeit unausgereift erscheinen, die Diskussion über diese Maßnahmen ist dennoch notwendig. Steht doch nicht weniger als die Funktionsfähigkeit der wichtigsten Grundlage der sozialen Marktwirtschaft zur Disposition.

Chinese companies sometimes appoint a government official (bureaucrat) as CEO on the expectation of benefiting from the political connections of the new hire. Based on a sample of 2,454 CEO transitions our empirical findings are consistent with the implications of a simple contract model in oligopolistic markets. Firms that appoint a bureaucrat as CEO obtain more credit and subsidies. They have positive abnormal announcement returns, negative abnormal long-run returns and larger variance of long-run returns. Furthermore, they experience a deterioration in operating performances, increased rent-seeking behavior of the management and weakening of corporate governance. The results from the split share structure reform in 2005 corroborate the supportive findings for the preferential treatment hypothesis.