SSRN-How Do Family Ownership, Control and Management Affect Firm Value? by Belen Villalonga, Raphael Amit

As my advanced corporate finance class tacks into capital structure and governance, we will be going over this article by Villalonga and Amit that finds that there to be a positive affect of family ownership/management.

SSRN-How Do Family Ownership, Control and Management Affect Firm Value? by Belen Villalonga, Raphael Amit:

"Analysis of the data indicates that family ownership creates value for all of the firm's shareholders only when it is combined with certain forms of family control and management. Family control in excess of ownership often results in multiple share classes, pyramids, cross, holdings, and votingagreements, all of which reduce shareholder value. Family management adds value when the founder serves as the CEO; when descendants assume the office of CEO, however, firm value decreases. Still,minority shareholders are likely to be no worse off in a family firm than they would have been in a non-family firm. In fact, founder-CEO firms withcontrol-enhancing mechanisms are about 25 percent more valuable than non-familyfirms."