Multinational companies’ real asset ownership and its impact on diversification

Purpose – This study examines whether or not holding a greater percentage of real assets significantly impacts the risk and risk‐adjusted return of U.S. based multinational companies. Design/methodology/approach – A series of rolling Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS) regression models are used to analyse the relationships among corporate real assets, systematic risk (beta), and risk‐adjusted return. Findings – The results of this study show that U.S. based multinational companies do have lower betas. However, U.S. based multinational companies’ cross border real asset holdings do not affect diversification and do not provide significantly higher risk‐adjusted returns to stockholders. Originality/value – This study builds upon the prior work of Seiler, Chatrath and Webb to consider multinational firms. This had never been done previously.