Determinants of RPTs in the Brazilian stock market: analysis of control-ownership wedge, firm value, performance and corporate governance

Abstract This study aims to analyze the influence of the control-ownership wedge, firm value, performance, and corporate governance in the value of Related Party Transactions (RPTs) of companies with pyramidal structures. The research is conducted in Brazil over an eight-year period from 2010 to 2017 and uses an unbalanced sample of 153 firms or 929 firm-year observations. The paper uses an OLS panel and a quantile regression as robustness. Our findings show that control-ownership wedge, performance, and corporate governance are determinants of the total value of RPTs. The deviation has a positive influence, showing that the excess of control rights increases the total value of RPTs. On the other hand, performance has a negative effect, showing that less profitable companies have incentives to participate in RPTs. In corporate governance, the relationship is positive, contrary to the expected in the literature. It signals that the corporate governance environment in Brazil has not reduced the total value of RPTs in pyramidal companies. The research contributes to the literature by presenting evidence of an emerging market and relating relevant themes in corporate finance, characterizing the use of RPTs by companies with pyramidal structures.