Ownership Structure and Dividend-Payout Policy: Empirical Evidence from Russian Companies

Abstract

The goal of this research is to establish a relationship between the company’s ownership structure and its dividend payout policy. In order to achieve it one had to, first of all, formulate the hypotheses based on the existing theoretical and empirical literature, as well as on the analysis of peculiarities of the Russian market. Secondly, one had to organize an extensive dataset in order to be able to construct many representative models. Thirdly, one had to conduct an empirical study using means of econometric analysis in order to test the significance of the formulated hypotheses and estimate the type of the relationship. During the latter stage all models were tested for heteroskedasticity and were subjected to the correction process. As a result of the conducted research one could observe inverse relationship of dividend payouts with ownership concentration; direct relationship of dividend payouts with executive board stock possession, number of shareholder meetings / board of director meetings, percentage of foreigners in the supervisory board, etc; ambiguous relationship of dividend payouts with stock possession by the CEO. In the end, limitations of the research, directions for the further one and managerial applications of the results are discussed.