Ownership Structure and Firm Performance: Evidence from United Kingdom Listed Companies

The published empirical and analytical corporate governance literatures on the influence of ownership structure on company performance are still controversial. In our study, the correlation between ownership structure and firm performance is explored for 66 non-financial listed companies in UK over period from 2011 to 2015. Meanwhile this paper utilized value of Tobin’s q and ROA as the firm performance respectively in order to clarify comprehensive analysis. The results illustrated that institutional ownership does not have impacts on firm performance. Meanwhile, as the widely diffuse ownership structure is common in UK, our study shows that there is no correlation between first largest shareholder and company performance. Moreover this paper found the relation between government ownership and company performance is non-linear. In the final analysis, shareholding by the domestic shareholders is negatively correlated to corporate performance.