How Can We Increase Shareholder' Wealth? An Empirical Validation from European Countries

Abstract

This paper tests the determinants of shareholder's wealth. Our study examined three countries: Russia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The samples contains 69 firms for every country observed over a period of 4 years from 2007 to 2010. Firm value is measured by two ratios: Tobin's Q ratio obtained as the sum of market capitalisation, long term debt and short term capital structure divided by total assets, and market to book ratio measured as market value equity over shareholder's equity. The descriptive statistics manipulate that firms in Sweden and the United Kingdom have higher Tobin's Q and market to book ratios, respectively. We found evidence about the hypothesis of tax savings on firm value. Firms with higher values of performance have higher market equity values. We manipulated to a significant relationship between firm value and size when we consider, only Tobin's Q ratio, as dependant variable. More cash means high stocks prices for firms in Sweden and the United Kingdom. In the British and Swedish markets, older firms have less value.