Corporate Ownership in Latin American Firms: A Comparative Analysis of Dual-Class Shares

Innocents Abroad: The Hazards of International Joint Ventures with Pyramidal Group Firms

“…For most group firms, the dominant shareholder's control is further strengthened by additional means. The family can expand its voting power relative to its actual ownership stake by holding super‐voting shares (more than one vote per share), golden shares (single shares carrying 51% of all votes), corporate charters limiting shareholders' voting rights (specifying, for instance, that the family appoints over half the directors), dual class shares (Almeida and Wolfenzon, ; Kabbach‐Castro, Crespi‐Cladera, and Aguilera, ), and other control‐enhancing mechanisms. Cross‐holdings—firms holding equity blocks in other firms at equivalent or higher tiers—can make the position, or membership, of a firm in a pyramidal group hard for outsiders to gauge and its managers' actions difficult to predict.…”