1. A Case-Study on State-Owned Firms Agency Costs: A Call for More Effective Governance and Board Independence.
- Author
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Morais Francisco, Paulo
- Subjects
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BOARDS of directors , *AGENCY costs , *INTEREST rates , *GOVERNMENT business enterprises , *BUSINESS enterprises - Abstract
This paper performs a case study analysis of a deal (snowball swap) conducted by a state-owned transportation firm in Portugal. This deal lowered immediately the financing costs by 3 percentage points in the first 2 years and then it would cost an additive spread (snowball) if the Euribor interest rate crossed the barrier of 2% to 6%. The Euribor interest rate dropped to levels well below 2% and these contracts, which had a notional value of 80 million euros, had a cost of around 700 million euros. From the analysis of the contours of this business, it is possible to conclude that the corporate governance model of state-owned companies does not prevent situations of lack of independence of managers from the political power and this leads to a very short-term vision of these managers and creates adverse incentives for these managers. The paper concludes with a discussion of this case study implications for public policy on state-owned firms' governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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