Ties That Bind: How Business Connections Affect Mutual Fund Activism

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cvijanovic, Dragana; Dasgupta, Amil; Zachariadis, Konstantinos E.
• 署名单位: University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; University of North Carolina School of Medicine; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; University of London; London Business School
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1082
• DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12425
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 2933-2966
• 关键词: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

摘要

We investigate whether business ties with portfolio firms influence mutual funds' proxy voting using a comprehensive data set spanning 2003 to 2011. In contrast to prior literature, we find that business ties significantly influence promanagement voting at the level of individual pairs of fund families and firms after controlling for Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommendations and holdings. The association is significant only for shareholder-sponsored proposals and stronger for those that pass or fail by relatively narrow margins. Our findings are consistent with a demand-driven model of biased voting in which company managers use existing business ties with funds to influence how they vote.