Does ownership structure affect performance? Evidence from Chinese mutual funds

This paper examines the impact of ownership structure on Chinese mutual fund performance and market share. We focus on two dimensions of ownership structure, namely the background of the owners and the degree of ownership concentration. Using a hand-collected dataset comprising 731 observations for 94 fund management companies over the period from 2005 to 2015, we provide evidence with panel estimation shows that the government ownership ratio and government-controlled companies have a positive effect on funds’ performance. On the other hand, foreign ownership has a negative impact on performance and market share. Having a higher ownership concentration is more likely to increase the company’s market share, whereas government-controlled companies experience a negative impact on their market share.