• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.451-459
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• 2020

This study aims to examine the relationship of the four factors that increase the protection of minority shareholder investment. The factors are non-controlling shareholders, corporate governance, free cash flow, and shareholder wealth. The data for this study is obtained from the 2017 annual reports of 136 Thai public companies listed in the Market of Alternative Investment of Thailand (MAI). The analysis uses a multiple regression model to determine which factors encourage and which inhibit the protection of minority shareholder investment. The study tests four hypotheses. The results rejected H1 because non-controlling shareholders have negatively correlated with minority shareholder investment protection (beta -0.155 and p-value 0.050). The results accepted H2, H3 and H4 as follows. H2: corporate governance has positively correlated with minority shareholder investment protection (beta 0.17 and p-value 0.031). H3: free cash flow has positively correlated with minority shareholder investment protection (beta 0.214 and p-value 0.007). H4: shareholder wealth has positively correlated with minority shareholder investment protection (beta 0.318 and p-value 0.000). The major findings suggest strong minority shareholder investment protection was enhanced by increasing corporate governance, free cash flow and shareholder wealth. The protection of minority shareholder investment needs to reduce non-controlling shareholding pattern.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.83-89
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• 2023

Purpose: Research on spin-off and treasury stock is necessary because the market has realized that this can be utilized for major shareholder private interest. Considering the unique characteristic of a spin-off and treasury stock in the Korean stock market, this study contributes to the literature by examining the effects on shareholder value in the Korean distribution industry. Research design, data, and methodology: The present study investigates literature, analyst reports, and news articles to examine the spin-off process and analyze how treasury stock magic happens. Results: Setting the exchange ratio favoring Spin-Co in the spin-off is the leading cause for reducing the minor shareholders' value. Moreover, treating treasury stock as an asset is also problematic, allowing the allocation of Spin-Co shares. This leads to an increase in the major shareholder controls of Spin-Co without any contribution from the major shareholders. Therefore, the exchange ratio should be calculated reasonably, and treasury stock from the stock repurchase should be treated as stock retirement. Conclusion: By analyzing the spin-off and how treasury stock magic occurs, this study provides recommendations to improve shareholder value. Moreover, it contributes to the maturation of the Korean capital market by promoting a discussion on the revision of spin-off and treasury stock.

• Korean small business review
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.195-220
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• 2020

In this study, we examined the effects of major shareholder's holdings and foreign shareholder's holdings on capital structure with the samples of listed non-financial firms in KOSPI and KOSDAQ. More specifically, we conduct the data on 7,074 large firms and 2,394 SMEs(Small-Medium Enterprises) before and after the adoption of K-IFRS from 2002 to 2019. The main results can be summarized as follows. The results indicate that the adoption of K-IFRS affects the capital structure of large firms more than SMEs. The major shareholder's holdings and the foreign shareholder's holdings of the large and SMEs listed on the KOSPI and the KOSDAQ market have a significant effect on the leverage ratio. It can be seen that major shareholders of large firms and SMEs reduce the leverage ratio by recognizing the use of debt as financial risk. In addition, it can be seen that regardless of whether or not K-IFRS is adopted, foreign shareholders recognize the use of debt as financial risk and reduce the leverage ratio in order to reduce the investment risk.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.53-58
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• 2022

Purpose: Controlling and minority shareholders sometimes have conflicting interests. Controlling shareholders who do not have adequate monitoring can exhibit a strong tendency to maximize their personal wealth. In this case, cash holdings can be the easiest means for them to pursue their personal interests. This study examined whether the largest shareholder's ownership proportion affected the speed at which firms adjust their cash holdings to target levels in Korean distribution and service companies. Research design, data, and methodology: The study uses regression analysis to examine 834 firm-year samples listed on the KOSPI between 2013 and 2018 in the distribution and service sectors. Results: The largest shareholder's ownership is positively related to a firm's cash holdings adjustment speed. That is, the larger the largest shareholder's ownership, the faster the firm adjusts its cash holdings to achieve the target level. Conclusions: This study contributes to the literature by providing evidence that the cash holdings adjustment speed in Korean service and distribution companies is affected by the largest shareholder's ownership. As the agency problem between controlling and minority shareholders in Korea is a major issue, minority owners' sensitivity to agency costs may help restrict controlling owners' ability to maximize their personal wealth.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.311-328
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• 2022

Purpose - The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between firm's non financial performance and its shareholder return by analyzing PCA while focusing on the classifying all the variables into three categories such as financial, characteristics, and non financial factors of the firms. Design/methodology/approach - By exploring the pattern of self tender from the 801 firms in KOSPI while focusing on the objective of stock disposal, this paper analyzes the change of shareholder return of the firm. Findings - First, the higher major ownership, the lower self tender gets, whereby the higher ownership by foreigners, the ratio of self tender is higher. Secondly, cash dividend has not significant impact on the disposal of self stock, and the high ratio of ownership by foreigners leads to the high probability of retirement rather than the general disposal. In contrast, the major ownership has a negative impact on the general disposal as well as retirement. Thirdly, the score of non financial factors such as Environment(E), Social responsibility(S), and Governance(G) shows the high value in case of the firms with self tender. More specifically, the firms with retirement has the highest value of ESG while it has the lowest value in case of the firms with general disposal. Research implications or Originality - The retirement which means the active shareholder return is strongly affected by the non financial factors. Specifically, the probability of retirement increases in case of the firms with retirement, and even such a tendency is found to the case of the firms with general disposal.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.31-62
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• 2010

This paper analyzes empirically how analysts' forecasts affected by ownership structure. This study examine a sample of 1,037~1,629 the analysts' forecasts of firms registered in Korean Stock Exchange in the period from 2000 to 2006. The empirical results are summarized as follows. First, from the analysis, companies which have higher major shareholder's holdings tend to increase earnings forecast errors and earnings forecast accuracy. Meanwhile, companies which have higher institution shareholder's holdings tend to decrease earnings forecast errors and earnings forecast accuracy. This result is in line with the view of previous works that companies with higher major shareholder's holdings look towards more of analysts' optimistic forecasts in order to maintain friendly relations with major shareholders. Because of analysts' private information use from major shareholders, earnings forecast accuracy is higher in high major shareholder's holdings firm than in high institution shareholder's holdings it. Second, this analysis is whether the minimal required selection condition of outside directors, audit committee adoption and audit quality affect the relation between ownership structure and analysts' forecasts. This result is that variables related corporate governance do not affect statically the relation between ownership structure and analysts' forecasts. The meanings of this paper is to suggest the positive relations between ownership structure and analysts' forecasts. After this, if analysts will notice forecasts of more many firms, capital market will be more efficient and this field works are plentiful. Also it will need monitoring systems not to distort market efficiency by analysts' dishonest forecasts.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.43-49
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• 2019

Purpose - This paper empirically investigates what factors contribute to management decisions by corporate governance in the Korean stock market. In the paper, dividends and investments were imployed as management decisions and major stockholders' shares and foreign investors' shares were used as corporate governance. Research design, data, and Methodolog - Samples are constructed by manufacturing firms listed on the stock market of Korea as well as those who settle accounts in December from 2001 to 2018. Financial institutions are excluded from the sample as their accounting procedures, governance and regulations differ. This study adopted the panel regression model to assess the sample construction including yearly and cross-sectional data. Results - This results support the literatures that major shareholders showed insignificance to dividends, positive significance to investment in financially unconstrained firms and negative significance to investment in financially constrained firms. Whereas foreign investors favor firms to increase dividends but they decrease investments only in financially constrained firms. Conclusion - This paper documented evidence that financial constrained firms use dividends for their investment and foreign investors decrease investments under financial constraints. But for dividends decisions, foreign investors give significant positive impacts irrespective of financial constraints.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.53-77
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• 2013

As advertising and promotions are categorized as operating expenses, managers tend to reduce marketing budget to improve their short term profitability. Gauging the value and accountability of marketing spending is therefore considered as a major research priority in marketing. To respond this call, recent studies have documented that financial market reacts positively to a firm's marketing activity or marketing related outcomes such as brand equity and customer satisfaction. However, prior studies focus on the relation of marketing variable and financial market variables. This study suggests a channel about how marketing activity increases firm valuation. Specifically, we propose that a firm's marketing activity increases the level of the firm's product market information and thereby the dispersion in financial analysts' earnings forecasts decreases. With less uncertainty about the firm's future prospect, the firm's managers and shareholders have less information asymmetry, which reduces the firm's cost of capital and thereby increases the valuation of the firm. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to examine how informational benefits can mediate the effect of marketing activity on firm value. To test whether marketing activity contributes to increase in firm value by mitigating information asymmetry, this study employs a longitudinal data which contains 12,824 firm-year observations with 2,337 distinct firms from 1981 to 2006. Firm value is measured by Tobin's Q and one-year-ahead buy-and-hold abnormal return (BHAR). Following prior literature, dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts is used as a proxy for the information gap between management and shareholders. For model specification, to identify mediating effect, the three-step regression approach is adopted. All models are estimated using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to test the statistical significance of the mediating effect. The analysis shows that marketing intensity has a significant negative relationship with dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts. After including the mediator variable about analyst dispersion, the effect of marketing intensity on firm value drops from 1.199 (p < .01) to 1.130 (p < .01) in Tobin's Q model and the same effect drops from .192 (p < .01) to .188 (p < .01) in BHAR model. The results suggest that analysts' forecast dispersion partially accounts for the positive effect of marketing on firm valuation. Additionally, the same analysis was conducted with an alternative dependent variable (forecast accuracy) and a marketing metric (advertising intensity). The analysis supports the robustness of the main results. In sum, the results provide empirical evidence that marketing activity can increase shareholder value by mitigating problem of information asymmetry in the capital market. The findings have important implications for managers. First, managers should be cognizant of the role of marketing activity in providing information to the financial market as well as to the consumer market. Thus, managers should take into account investors' reaction when they design marketing communication messages for reducing the cost of capital. Second, this study shows a channel on how marketing creates shareholder value and highlights the accountability of marketing. In addition to the direct impact of marketing on firm value, an indirect channel by reducing information asymmetry should be considered. Potentially, marketing managers can justify their spending from the perspective of increasing long-term shareholder value.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.73-89
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• 2009

Circular shareholdings among three companies are formed when company A owns stock in company B, company B owns stock in company C, and company C owns stock in company A. Since circular shareholdings among large family-controlled firms are used to give the controlling shareholder greater control or more opportunities to expropriate minority investors, the government has encouraged large business groups to gradually remove their circular shareholdings. In this paper, we propose a combinatorial optimization model that can answer the question, which equity investments among complicated investment relationships of one large business group should be removed to resolve its circular shareholdings. To the best knowledge of the authors, our research is the first one that has approached the circular shareholding problem in respect of management science. The proposed combinatorial optimization model are formulated into integer programming problem and applied to some Korean major business groups.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.205-224
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• 2020

Purpose - This study aimed to identify the effects of ownership structures on agency costs in internationally diversified firms listed on the KOSDAQ market. Design/methodology/approach - A total of 5,824 samples were finally selected and empirically analyzed for a total of nine years from 2011 to 2019, during which the International Accounting Standards had been mandatory for firms listed on the KOSDAQ market. Findings - The results of this study showed that the effects of ownership structures on the ratio of asset turnover are positive for the major share and foreign equity ratios of international diversified firms. Moreover, by selecting the ratio of entertainment expenses as a proxy for agency expenses, this study confirmed that the effects of the ownership structure of an international diversified entity on entertainment expenditure were determined to show a significantly negative relation to entertainment expenditure, thus indicating that the higher the ratio of major shareholders, the more appropriately control the expenditure of entertainment expenses through arbitrary private deviations of the management.Furthermore, considering the effect of the ownership structure on the expenditure of sales and administrative expenses as a proxy variable for agency costs, this study verified that the majority share ratio of international diversified firms was negative to the expenditure of sales and administrative expenses, confirming that the higher the share of major shareholders, the lower the selling and administrative costs, but insignificant.Finally, as a result of determining whether the ownership structure of an international diversified firm affects the holding of free cash, the majority share of this firm shows a significantly negative relation to the ratio of the holding of surplus cash, indicating that the higher the proportion of major shareholders, the more appropriately control the holding of the entity's free cash through arbitrary private deviance by the manager. Research implications or Originality - Major shareholders of an internationally diversified firm listed on the KOSDAQ market play a positive role in the firm's performance by properly controlling agency costs that may be incurred by the management.