Impact of foreign ownership on dividend policy in Poland
Impact of foreign ownership on dividend policy in Poland

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the impact of foreign investors, who were the majority shareholders of companies on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, on dividend policy of these companies in the years 2004-2014. An evaluation of the direction and strength of the influence of the analysed group of investors, using 2 models, was conducted applying logistic regression. The first – dividend payout policy based on the binary log it model - showed that along with a growing share of a foreign investor in a given company the probability of dividend payment by the company increased significantly. The second – dividend level change model based on the multi nominal log it method - showed, however, that with an increasing share of foreign investors the probability that a given company will reduce the paid dividend level was enhanced significantly. Additionally, it should be stated that these results, irrespective of the model used, were to a very large extent in line with conclusions of the pecking order theory. However, in the case of signaling, free cash flow and maturity theories, these results only to a small extent provided evidence supporting these theories.

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