Many observers believe that the Gome incident in that year has positive significance for the public to understand the modern corporate governance system. Unfortunately, this tuition fee is not paid by students, but by Gome shareholders. Gome's advantages in business are greatly affected by this incident, which is reflected in the stock price and far behind the market and competitors.
Apart from the accidental reasons for Huang Guangyu's imprisonment, one of the most important reasons for this incident is the shareholding structure of Gome, that is, the gains and losses of the controlling position of the major shareholder Huang Guangyu.
Investing in companies through the capital market is essentially a "ride", taking the car of major shareholders and management. Investors certainly don't want to pay for the fight between shareholders. So for investors, can such a situation be avoided as much as possible? In other words, what kind of ownership structure is dangerous for investors and what kind of ownership structure is ideal for investors?
Investors need to consider two main risks:
First, major shareholders or management hold too many shares, such as more than 50%. Under this ownership structure, the voting of retail investors has basically no restrictive effect on corporate governance, especially when the major shareholder is a natural person. In this case, they basically gave their investment risks to unpredictable human nature. If the major shareholders and management make mistakes in decision-making, or the major shareholders infringe upon the interests of the minor shareholders, there is nothing the minor shareholders can do.
Second, the majority shareholder or management holds too little shares, such as less than 5%. What investors need to worry about is whether major shareholders or management will work hard enough, or even doubt whether they will engage in corruption or related transactions for personal gain. This is the case when many state-owned enterprises are restructured and listed. I have a friend who used to buy shares of a steel company in the west and bought a lot to attend the shareholders' meeting. He said that at the meeting, a management member of the company glared at him and asked him: Where did you get so much money to buy so many shares? Why are you angry? Because the management of this company basically has no shares, and the company's share price rose a lot that year. From then on, my friend never dared to hold shares in this steel company. Now some newly listed companies also have this problem, because the early financing was too fierce, and the founders or founding teams basically became professional managers after listing.
Having said that, the conclusion is clear. What kind of ownership structure is more favorable to investors? There needs to be a major shareholder with relative control, but the shares cannot be absolutely dominant.
For example. 1999, a young man started a company in Shenzhen. He brought a few classmates and friends into the partnership, and the setting of the founding shares is like this. He holds about 47% of the shares himself, and several other partners have less shares than him, but the shares of several people add up to just a little more than himself. Afterwards, he talked about why the ownership structure is like this. He said it was because someone could stop him when he made a mistake. At that time, it was not clear what business the company did and how it made money.