Managerial ownership and firm performance: Evidence of listed companies in the Baltics

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relationship between managerial ownership and firm performance, which appears to be an important issue in corporate governance literature. We conduct regression analysis employing a sample of listed companies in the stock exchanges of the Baltic States. We test whether increased managerial ownership has effect on firm performance measured by Tobin’s Q and return on assets (ROA). The results reveal that there is positive relationship between managerial ownership and internal performance measure (ROA) while it does not significantly affect the market performance measure (Tobin’s Q). We conclude that management mainly focuses on firm fundamental factors and ratios like profitability, sales growth, investment – they have positive relation with managerial ownership. Meanwhile, there is no significant difference in market-related factors for companies with or without managerial ownership, as these factors in the Baltics are more influenced by other considerations like economics, politics and high liquidity premium.