Determinanten der Aktionärspräsenz auf Hauptversammlungen deutscher Aktiengesellschaften

We analyze the determinants of shareholder participation in the annual shareholders' meeting using a sample of 126 listed German corporations over the period 2004-2006. Participation depends (unsurprisingly) on the ownership structure: it is negatively related to the fraction of voting equity owned by small shareholders and positively related to the stake of the largest owner. We further find that shareholder participation is negatively related to the standardized trading volume. This suggest that firms with higher volume tend to have more short-term investors. Our results also indicate that shareholder participation increases if the management proposes a dividend cut. Finally, shareholder participation is lower in firms which have issued registered shares as compared to firms which have issued bearer shares.