Does Shareholder Composition Matter?

Corporations are convinced that the composition of their shareholders has a significant, if difficult to quantify, impact on both the company’s and the stock price’s long term-performance. A survey conducted by the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) and Stanford University found that 91 percent of public companies discuss shareholder composition at the executive level, and 75 percent at the board level, while CEOs spend an incredible 4.2 days per quarter ‘managing’ their shareholder base. But for all this effort, Stanford University professors Anne Beyer and David Larcker and researcher Brian Tayan don’t see any proof that shareholder composition even matters.

Shareholder composition: Companies won’t long-term, passive investors

Companies have a...