The Influence of Corporate Governance and Ownership Concentration on Company Performance - Evidence from Bucharest Stock Exchange

The main purpose of this study was to explore whether the current corporate governance mechanisms have an impact on the company’s performance in Romania. The importance of this study is given by the following reasons. Firstly, the study will contribute to the existing literature concerning corporate governance impact on firm performance of listed firms in Romania. Secondly, the result of this study will help interested parties to evaluate the level of compliance of recommendations made in the Corporate Governance Code. The study was conducted for the companies listed on BSE, in the first category. The financial companies and the credit institutions were excluded from the sample. The final sample included 15 companies. Return on Assets, Return on Equity and Return on Sales were used for measuring the performance of the firm. The corporate governance was measured with three variables: total numbers of board members, the percentage of independent members on the board and CEO duality. The ownership concentration was measured with the fraction of shares held by the largest top three shareholders having over 10% and Herfindal index. Econometric tools like multiple linear regressions were used for analysis. The results of the study suggest that there is a positive significant link between firm performance and proportion of independent members of the board.