Corporate Governance of Banks, Performance, Market and Capital Structure

Many scholars have linked Corporate Governance (CG) and performance or CG, capital structure of banks or market structure. The decision to use the capital market or debt in order to obtain the necessary capital to finance firms’ operations is a critical factor for the formulation of corporate environment, because it contributes to the ownership concentration or diffusion and to corporate risk exposure level.

The paper’s goal is to link all these three dimensions and to address the issue of whether performance and capital structure are the decisive factors of good corporate governance or vice versa and whether these dimensions are the drivers of banks’ financial health, strategic robustness and survival effectiveness. Furthermore, the paper is seeking to detect the differences (if any) among banking systems across Europe.

To do that a double sample is selected (covering the period from 2004 to 2013). The first sample is comprised by European banks that merged. The second sample is comprised by European banks that survived the last merger & acquisition wave and the systemic shock of the double crises of 2002 and 2008.

A combined ratio of performance (ROAA or ROEA) and debt to equity (DE or debt aggravation) is used to determine if there is a connection between capital structure and CG quality of banks. Panel data methodology is used.

The econometric results show that there are no significant differences between the strata that are used for this research. There is no common factor or driver between the banking systems of Europe. This is an indication that the convergence theory of corporate governance systems is yet confirmed.