Ownership structures as determinants of financial decisions: evidence from Pakistani family owned listed firms
The current study aims to inspect the investment policy as well as financing policy with respect to ownership structure. Two threshold points of ownership structure (25% & 50%) were used to distinguishing family owned business (FOB) from the non-family (NFOB) ones. The data sample of 280 listed firms at Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) was collected from different sources like annual reports, financial statements and balance sheet analyses ranging for the period 2002-2013. Among many advance econometric techniques, Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) was found appropriate to estimate the coefficients of variables. The empirical results showed that the FOBs had lower investment-internal fund sensitivity than NFOBs. However, the blockholder’s effect on investment-internal fund sensitivity was found statistically insignificant. Furthermore, the weak application of Pecking Order Theory and higher payout ratio in FOBs as compared to NFOBs were revealed. Also, It was concluded that the lower agency and information asymmetry problems in FOBs comparatively.