Using a sample of China’s listed private firms we investigate the relationship between control-ownership wedge, bank connections and collateral requirement. We find that while control-ownership wedge relates to more pledged collateral, it is mainly the firm’s bank connections rather than its political connections that reduce the collateral requirement and weakens the positive relationship between the control-ownership wedge and collateral. We furhter find that the split-share structure reform and regions with high lender competition also require less collateral and weaken the positive relationship between the control-ownership wedge and collateral. We argue that in an emerging market where legal protection for creditors and investors are weak and relationship is prevalent, bank connections is a substitute for collateral through mitigating the information asymmetry and agency concerns by creditors, which has been further exacerbated due to the tunnelling risk by the controlling shareholders.

Prior to April 2005, only one third of the shares issued by exchange-listed companies in China are publicly tradable. The other two thirds, mainly owned by Chinese government agencies or government-linked enterprises, are prohibited from public trading. On April 29, 2005, the Chinese Securities Regulatory Committee announced a reform plan that aims to abolish the split-share structure by converting all non-tradable shares to be publicly tradable. We investigate the consequences of this unique event and shed light on how increase in share float affects liquidity, speculation and stock prices. Firstly, we find that tradable A-shares command a 60% price premium on average over non-tradable A-shares and this price premium contains both liquidity and speculation components. Secondly, the share structure reform increases share turnover and dampens speculative trading. Relative to control firms, share turnover of restructured firms increases substantially after the reform, with the largest increase (107 %) in firms that had low liquidity and low speculative trading before the reform. In contrast. there is no increase in share turnover of firms that had high liquidity and high speculative trading. Thirdly. stock prices drop substantially on the day when the supply of tradable shares increases due to the reform. Moreover. the higher increase in the supply of tradable A-shares. the larger drop in the stock price. This indicates that the short-term demand curve is downward-sloping. Fourthly. despite the fall in stock prices. shareholder wealth increases by 15% on average. We find that the largest price drop and the smallest wealth gain occurs in firms with the highest speculative trading before the reform. which suggests that share structure reform dampens speculative trading in Chinese market. Lastly, split share reform also benefits the B-share market despite that the reform involves only A shares: B-share turnover increases after the reform and the well-known B share price discount narrows substantially .

This paper investigates the market response to reform of the Chinese split (A-)share structure using a sample of companies included in the China Securities Index 300. We find the three-day cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) to be negative and significant around government announcement of the reform on 29 April 2005, but not significant around individual companies’ decision to implement the reform. We attribute this change in market sentiment to the release of information during company announcement that the reform will feature some type of consideration to existing shareholders of tradable A-shares. Our results also show that existing holders of tradable A-shares require higher returns when companies pay in warrants or combination methods. However, we find no relation between the level of consideration and CAR suggesting that investors perceive the consideration to be adequate based on the company’s financial and operating conditions at the time of the reform.

An unparalleled feature ownership structures in China is the presence of non tradable shares (NTS). NTS represented a major hurdle to domestic financial market development for its negative effects on liquidity and market transparency. After some failed attempts, in 2005 the Chinese authorities have launched a structural reform program aiming at eliminating NTS. In this paper, we evaluate the stock price effects of the actual implementation of this reform in 368 firms. The NTS reform generated a statistically significant 8 percent positive abnormal return over the event window, adjusting prices for the compensation requested by tradable shareholders. Results are consistent with the expectation of improved economic fundamentals such as better corporate governance and enhanced liquidity.

In 2005 and 2006, the split-share structure reform converted the nontradable shares of most domestic public firms in China to tradable shares. This conversion imparted a drastic supply shock to the public market. Studying this unique event, we provide direct evidence to support an inelastic demand curve for stocks. Abnormal returns of the sample firms resulting from the reform are found to be negatively associated with the size of the supply shock. This finding is free from the confounding information effects present in many prior studies of stock price elasticity. It is also robust after controlling for opposite price impacts of ROA, firm size, and ownership concentration.

This paper investigates the market response to reform of the Chinese split (A-)share structure using a sample of companies included in the China Securities Index 300. We find the three-day cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) to be negative and significant around government announcement of the reform on 29 April 2005, but not significant around individual companies’ decision to implement the reform. We attribute this change in market sentiment to the release of information during company announcement that the reform will feature some type of consideration to existing shareholders of tradable A-shares. Our results also show that existing holders of tradable A-shares require higher returns when companies pay in warrants or combination methods. However, we find no relation between the level of consideration and CAR suggesting that investors perceive the consideration to be adequate based on the company’s financial and operating conditions at the time of the reform.

This paper investigates the market response to reform of the Chinese split (A-)share structure using a sample of companies included in the China Securities Index 300. We find the three-day cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) to be negative and significant around government announcement of the reform on 29 April 2005, but not significant around individual companies’ decision to implement the reform. We attribute this change in market sentiment to the release of information during company announcement that the reform will feature some type of consideration to existing shareholders of tradable A-shares. Our results also show that existing holders of tradable A-shares require higher returns when companies pay in warrants or combination methods. However, we find no relation between the level of consideration and CAR suggesting that investors perceive the consideration to be adequate based on the company’s financial and operating conditions at the time of the reform.