Dynamics in ownership and firm survival: Evidence from corporate Germany

This study investigates the determinants of changes in corporate ownership nd firm failure,taking into ccount di fferent types of sellers and buyers of control blocks. For large panel of German corporations we find that firms are more likely to fail or to be sold when performance is poor,financial pressure is high,nd firm size is small.Cross-ownership deters control changes,nd ownership concentration has non-linear impact on the likelihood of control transfer.In contrast to corporate shareholders,private shareholders tend to sell control blocks when financial pressure increases.