[We study the change in government control of privatized firms in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. At the end of 2000, after the largest privatization wave in history, governments retained control of 62.4% of privatized firms. In civil law countries, governments tend to retain large ownership positions, whereas in common law countries they typically use golden shares. When we combine these two mechanisms, we find no association between a country's legal tradition and the extent of government control. Rather, we document more prevalent government influence over privatized firms in countries with proportional electoral rules and with a centralized system of political authority. of political authority.]

We document that announcement-period abnormal returns of sovereign wealth fund (SWF) equity investments in publicly traded firms are positive but lower than those of comparable private investments. Further, SWF investment targets suffer from declining return on assets and sales growth over the following three years. Our results are robust to controls for target and deal characteristics and are not driven by SWF target selection criteria. Larger discounts are associated with SWFs taking seats on boards of directors and with SWFs under strict government control acquiring greater stakes, supporting the hypothesis that political influence negatively affects firm value and performance.

We study the change in government control of privatized firms in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. At the end of 2000, after the largest privatization wave in history, governments retained control of 62.4% of privatized firms. In civil law countries, governments tend to retain large ownership positions, whereas in common law countries they typically use golden shares. When we combine these two mechanisms, we find no association between a country's legal tradition and the extent of government control. Rather, we document more prevalent government influence over privatized firms in countries with proportional electoral rules and with a centralized system of political authority. The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]., Oxford University Press.

This paper shows that share issue privatization (SIP) is a major source of domestic stock market liquidity in 19 developed economies. Particularly, privatization IPOs have a negative effect on the price impact – measured by the ratio of the absolute return on the market index to turnover. This result is robust to the inclusion of controls for other observable and unobservable factors, having also considered the endogenous nature of the decision to privatize. We also provide evidence of a positive spillover of SIP on the liquidity of private companies. This cross-asset externality is one implication of liquidity theories emphasizing the improved risk diversification opportunities and risk sharing brought about by privatization. This externality stems from both domestic privatization IPOs and cross-listings.

We document that announcement-period abnormal returns of sovereign wealth fund (SWF) equity investments in publicly traded firms are positive but lower than those of comparable private investments. Further, SWF investment targets suffer from declining return on assets and sales growth over the following three years. Our results are robust to controls for target and deal characteristics and are not driven by SWF target selection criteria. Larger discounts are associated with SWFs taking seats on boards of directors and with SWFs under strict government control acquiring greater stakes, supporting the hypothesis that political influence negatively affects firm value and performance.