This chapter examines ownership and control of Swedish companies. Sweden witnessed a significant increase in ownership concentration in the top 20 and top 100 firms in the past few decades. Equity ownership concentration remained virtually the same in listed companies. A few major ownership patterns may be documented. First, the large shareholders remained the dominant corporate governance model in Sweden. Second, the largest domestic shareholders, such as families and holding companies (closed-end investment funds) have persisted in the past few decades. Third, there was an increase in the share of foreign owners as the largest shareholders in both the top 100 and listed companies. Fourth, there was also an emergence of new entrepreneurs as the largest shareholders in the large Swedish companies. The chapter has documented both the persistence of corporate insiders and ownership changes (e.g. an increase in foreign ownership, establishment of new domestic largest individual shareholders) in the past few decades. It also shows the importance of domestic institutional investors. It discusses a few reasons why the ownership structure remains persistent despite the substantial influence of global market forces, liberalization of domestic markets and corporate governance and legal reforms in Sweden.

The United Kingdom was the first country to develop a code of best practice of corporate governance. This chapter gives a brief overview of UK corporate governance regulation, including recent reforms, followed by a discussion of the listing and disclosure rules. It then performs an empirical study of the control and ownership of the top 20, top 100 and the listed UK companies for two distinct points in time, i.e. the 1990s and 2018–2019. The following patterns emerge. Over the period ranging from the late 1990s to 2018–2019, the percentage of listed companies in the top 20 and top 100 suffered a substantial decrease. In contrast, the percentage of fully owned subsidiaries among the top UK companies shot up from virtually nil to more than half of such companies. Still, the average listed UK company remains widely held in 2018–2019 (Goergen and Renneboog, 2001). The chapter then proceeds by identifying potential determinants explaining the observed ownership changes. The chapter concludes with a number of reflections on how UK corporate ownership and control may change during the post-Brexit period.

This chapter analyses the ownership of Swiss corporations in the last decades. A main finding is that in listed companies, there has been a substantial decrease of the fraction of ownership by the top three shareholders. For example, for the listed companies ranked 21 to 100, the median stake of the three largest shareholders dropped from 42.5% in 2008 to 36.6% in 2018. More generally, the concentration of the disclosed shareholders has decreased. Non-domestic investors hold large stakes in companies listed in Switzerland and have become more important in the largest, most mature companies – not only have their share ownership significantly increased, but they are also more active in exercising their voting rights and in engaging with companies. We also provide some evidence, drawing on a series of surveys of market participants, that these developments, especially the presence and increasing activity of non-domestic investors, have direct implications on the governance practice of companies listed in Switzerland.

This chapter presents evidence on ownership and control in Germany. Ownership concentration dropped in the large German companies in the past few decades. Yet it remained relatively higher than in their counterparts in the Anglo-American world. There was a remarkable increase in the number of companies with dispersed ownership. Yet the widely held companies accounted for only 20% of the top 20 firms, 17% of the top 100 and about 21% of listed companies in 2018–2019. A few other patterns of ownership change have been documented: a decline in the share of other German companies (non-financial and holding companies), domestic banks and insurance companies, and the state as largest shareholders, and the rise of foreign investors. The role of families as key largest shareholders has varied by company size. The chapter also discusses the determinants of corporate ownership persistence and why the forces of path dependence stemming from the German national system of ‘coordinated market economy’ appear to be more powerful than the pressure coming from global markets and legal reforms in the 1990s.

This chapter examines ownership and control structures in Austria. As many other European countries, Austria experienced a shake-up in securities law, mainly induced by EU Directives (such as those on shareholder rights, takeovers and transparency). Despite of investor favourable changes in the securities law, ownership concentration remain very high in Austria in listed and unlisted companies alike. Thus, large shareholders remain the predominant corporate governance model in Austria. The identities of the controlling shareholders remained very much the same during the past decades with one important exception, banks. Pyramidal ownership structures have remained prevalent as of 2018–2019 in Austria, since non-financial firms and holding companies together controlled nearly half of the top 100 Austrian firms. Thus, families and individuals which stand behind those companies remained the most important ultimate controlling owners. There was a remarkable decline of state control of listed companies after privatization but the state retained an important role as large and controlling shareholder in many of the largest (listed and unlisted) Austrian companies. While around twenty-five years ago foreign owners already controlled around 20% of the largest Austrian companies, this percentage kept increasing. The chapter discusses the role of ‘complementary institutions’, the preferences of both controlling owners and prospective buyers, and a missing political will to embrace a more shareholder oriented model.