This paper demonstrates that non-voting shares can promote takeovers. When the bidder has private information, shareholders may refuse to tender because they suspect to sell at an ex post unfavourable price. The ensuing friction in the sale of cash flow rights can prevent an efficient change of control. Separating cash flow and voting rights alters the degree of cross-subsidization among bidder types. It can therefore be used as an instrument to promote takeover activity and to discriminate between efficient and inefficient bidders. The optimal fraction of non-voting shares decreases with managerial ability, implying an inverse relationship between firm value and non-voting shares.

We relate trade credit to product characteristics and aspects of bank-rm relationships and document three main empirical regularities. First, the use of trade credit is associated with the nature of the transacted good. In particular, suppliers of dierentiated products and services have larger accounts receivable than suppliers of standardized goods and rms buying more services receive cheaper trade credit for longer periods. Second, rms receiving trade credit secure nancing from relatively uninformed banks. Third, a majority of the rms in our sample appears to receive trade credit at low cost.