Cvijanović, Dragana, Dasgupta, Amil ORCID: 0000-0001-8474-9470 and Zachariadis, Konstantinos (2016) Ties that bind: how business connections affect mutual fund activism. Journal of Finance, 71 (6). pp. 2933-2966. ISSN 0022-1082
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Abstract
We investigate whether business ties with portfolio firms influence mutual funds’ proxy voting using a comprehensive data set spanning 2003 to 2011. In contrast to prior literature, we find that business ties significantly influence pro-management voting at the level of individual pairs of fund families and firms after controlling for ISS recommendations and holdings. The association is significant only for shareholder-sponsored proposals and stronger for those that pass or fail by relatively narrow margins. Our findings are consistent with a demand-driven model of biased voting in which company managers use existing business ties with funds to influence how they vote.
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