← Search

Block Diversity and Governance

Ryan Israelsen1; Miriam Schwartz-Ziv2; James Weston3

1 Michigan State University · 2 Hebrew University of Jerusalem · 3 Rice University

The Review of Corporate Finance Studies 2025 open access

Abstract Governance practices differ significantly across blockholder types. Compared with financial blockholders, nonfinancial blockholders are six times more likely to identify as activists. A textual analysis of regulatory filings shows that nonfinancial blocks govern through customized governance actions, while financial blocks follow generic performance metrics. Furthermore, blockholdings drive an important limitation in using Russell index thresholds as an identification strategy. Manipulation of index weights by Russell is strongly correlated with nonfinancial block ownership, confounding previous research on passive ownership. Using both reduced-form and structural estimates, we find that the market expects greater value creation from the entry of a nonfinancial blockholder.

DOI
10.1093/rcfs/cfaf011
Language
en
Export
BibTeX
Sources
openalex crossref