How Ownership Can Shape Outcomes

Understanding the relationship between companies’ ownership types and financial outcomes may help investors uncover hidden opportunities and avoid structural risks. To assess this, we looked at the financial performance of a broad universe of listed companies across three ownership types, based on the largest shareholder’s voting power: controlled companies, firms with a principal shareholder and widely held firms.¹

Equity-concentration trend hints at underlying performance disparities

We first determined the relative size of these three groups of firms and found that there have been significant changes since 2015. The number of controlled companies included in the MSCI ACWI Index has grown over the last decade to reach 36% of firms by count as of July 2025. Over the same period, the number of widely held firms declined from 43% to 30% by count. The number of firms with a principal owner also increased over the period, suggesting an overall trend toward greater ownership concentration.  

The change in overall market capitalization between controlled firms and widely held firms has, however, been negligible. This suggests that widely held firms have outperformed controlled peers despite their shrinking number. These trends underline how important the relationship between ownership type and long-term financial performance may be. They also raise wider questions about what features of each ownership model may drive, or constrain, the creation of shareholder value. 

Data as of July 14, 2025. Data labels have been rounded to nearest whole number. Source: MSCI ESG Research

We ran two separate multivariate regressions on five- and 10-year total shareholder return (TSR) to further investigate the performance differences between ownership types. Even after controlling for a firm’s size and sector and market development, companies with principal or widely held ownership structures outperformed their controlled peers. On average, principal-owned firms outperformed by 8.7% over five years and 11.6% over 10 years, while widely held firms outperformed by 10.3% and 14.9%, respectively. These effects were statistically significant and robust to structural controls. This suggests that investors may benefit from considering corporate-ownership type as part of their long-term equity analysis. 

Data as of July 14, 2025. Five- and 10-year TSR analysis included 1,906 companies that were continuous constituents of the MSCI ACWI Index between 2015 and 2025. Both multivariate regressions included binary variables for ownership form, with controlled as the baseline. Control variables included the natural log of market capitalization, market development and sector dummies. Both the five- and 10-year models were statistically significant: R² = 0.21 and 0.32, respectively; p-value < 0.0001; and F-statistic = 37.7 and 64.8, respectively. Key ownership variables were also statistically significant in both models: for the five-year model, principal (p = 0.012) and widely held (p = 0.008); and for the 10-year model, principal (p = 0.011) and widely held (p = 0.004). Correlation does not mean causation. Source: MSCI ESG Research

Further analysis is needed to understand how corporate-ownership structures may contribute to these performance differences, not just across the three ownership types, but within the broad category of controlled firms. For example, evaluating the use of control-enhancing mechanisms, such as dual-class shares or pyramid structures, may yield further insights. Their use, or absence, may play an important role in structuring incentives across the firm and informing financially relevant decision-making. The nature of the controlling owner, such as a founder, family or state, as well as any changes in ownership type over time, may also shape incentives. Exploring these types of characteristics could provide deeper insight into corporate ownership and may further help investors integrate ownership analysis into their investment process. 

We found important performance differences between key corporate-ownership types, with controlled firms lagging their widely held peers and those with a principal shareholder. While further analysis is warranted to explore these trends, our results indicate an important insight for investors: Ownership structure is more than a corporate formality; it may serve as a strategic signal of long-term performance.