In this article, we analyse investment preferences of domestic and foreign institutional investors to the management quality of Chinese listed firms. We find that foreign institutional investors hold higher shareholding in firms with greater numbers of executive officers with MBA degrees, having served as vice president or higher prior to joining the firm and sitting on multiple boards. Foreign institutional investors in China also show preference over investee firms with larger board size. However, they pay no attention to whether directors are independent from the firm management and meet often. Domestic institutional investors show preference to all management quality indicators that are associated with foreign institutional ownership. In addition, domestic institutional investors invest more in firms where the executive officers are certified public accountants (CPA) and are longer tenured in their current position. Furthermore, domestic institutional investors pay more attention to corporate governance of investee firms than foreign institutional investors. Finally, we find that domestic institutional investors show a strong preference to firms that have been invested by at least one Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII), even after controlling for QFII’s preference for management quality. This indicates that the QFIIs’ international reputation has been used by domestic institutional investors as a positive signal for investment opportunities.

This paper studies the links between fundamental value and market price of the companies listed in both mainland A-share and Hong Kong H-share markets. As the valuation model has been inadequately applied in the literature, this study theoretically clarifies that the dividends discount model (DDM) and it derivatives are suitable for firms, but not for general consumers and investors, to evaluate equity fundamental values. Thus, using DDM and its derivatives to determine the market price of equity, which has been done in many other studies, is problematic. This paper also empirically studies how accounting data determines fundamental values of equities using a pooled-data vector autoregressive method. It indicates that although fundamental value can be a benchmark for investors to price equity, prices of equity may deviate from fundamental values substantially for a long time due to differences in preference and the extent of risk aversion between A-shares and H-shares. Correlation between equity price and its fundamental value for H-shares is larger than the correlation for A-shares. This paper also explains why there has been a big price gaps between A-shares and H-shares with exactly the same yields rights. The estimates of fundamental value for each company help investors make rational investment decisions. It suggests that, in the long run, healthy development of Chinese securities markets will depend on the progress of privatisation and marketisation of the Chinese economy. Measures such as the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) and Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors (QDII) programmes should be adopted to improve the efficiency of financial resources utilisation in mainland China, despite the short-run pressure that may put on A-share markets.

Stock market liberalization is a decision to allow foreign investors to purchase domestic shares. This paper is an event study on market reactions around the announcement of the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) scheme in China. We find no significant abnormal returns in market indices in the short-term period leading up to the announcement, negative abnormal returns in the short-term period following the announcement, and no significant abnormal returns in the long-term period thereafter. The findings do not comply with the prediction of international asset pricing models. The QFII scheme may not help much in reducing the cost of equity capital and risk premium of China companies.