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| Type | Master's Thesis |
| Scope | Discipline-based scholarship |
| Title | On the Payout Policies of Swiss Family Firms |
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| Institution | University of Zurich |
| Faculty | Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology |
| Number of Pages | 60 |
| Date | 2015 |
| Abstract Text | Executive Summary Description of the problem A significant amount of firms in Switzerland are owned by families and sometimes even by its original founder. The family often controls these so-called family firms for several generations (Fueglistaler and Zellweger (2004)). Because the owners of such firms often keep a large amount of their wealth within the company, corporate payouts become an essential part of their income (Isakov and Weisskopf (2014)). Derived from this fact, the thesis of this work states that family ownership is associated with higher and more frequent corporate payouts. Moreover, this work proposes that family firms also have a lower probability of dividend reductions than other firms. Dividends and capital repurchases often represent an important part of the total return of an outside investor, particularly in times of historically low interest rates and high market volatility corporate payouts become even more important (NZZ (2015)). However, it is for the companies own good if it initiates a dividend reduction in order to strengthen the firm’s capital in economically challenging times (Hull (2013)). It is the aim of this study to investigate whether or not family and / or founder firms are an attractive investment for outside investors. From an academic point of view studies on Swiss family firms became popular just a few years ago. Therefore, investigations on corporate payouts associated with family and founder ownership are still relatively scarce in Switzerland. |
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