The Control of Corporate Europe

Written by an international team of authors, this book provides the first systematic account of the control of corporate Europe based on voting block data disclosed in accordance with the European Union’s Large Holdings Directive (88/627/EEC). The study provides detailed information on the voting control of companies listed on the official markets in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and, as a benchmark
comparison, the United States. The authors record a high concentration of control of corporations in many European countries with single blockholders frequently controlling more than fifty per cent of
corporate votes. In contrast, a majority of UK listed companies have no blockholder owning more than ten per cent of shares, and a majority of US listed companies have no blockholder with more than six per cent of shares. Those chapters devoted to individual countries illustrate how blockholders can use legal devices to leverage their voting power over their cash-flow rights, or how incumbents prevent outsiders from gaining voting control. It is shown that the cultural and linguistic diversity
of Europe is (almost) matched by its variety of corporate control arrangements.

Author Biography

Fabrizio Barca is General Director for Development at the Italian Treasury, President of the OECD Territorial Policies Committee, and Director of a Research Programme on Corporate and Public Administration Governance at Siena University. He has previously been at the Bank of Italy as Division Chief at the Research Department and Chief of the Department of Development Policies at the Italian Treasury. He graduated from Rome University and completed an M.Phil. degree
and research activity at the Universities of Cambridge (1978-80), MIT (1989-90), and Stanford (1994). He had appointments at the Universities of Bocconi, Siena, Modena, and Rome, where he taught
corporate finance and Italian economic history. His works include papers and books on the theory of the firm, evidence on SMes, corporate governance and the history of Italian capitalism. Marco Becht teaches at the Institute for European Studies, the Solvay Business School, and the Law Faculty of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the European University Institute (EUI) in
Florence. Becht’s research focuses on corporate governance and empirical corporate finance. He is a Resident Fellow at ECARES and a Research Associate of CEPR. He was previously at the Centro de Estudios
Monetarios y Financieros (CEMFI) in Madrid and the European Commission’s Directorate for Industry (DG III). Becht is the executive coordinator of the European Corporate Governance Network (ECGN) and the scientific advisor of the Corporate Governance Committee of the European Association of Securities Dealers (EASD).