When and How Family Businesses Should Use Shareholder Agreements

A shareholder agreement (SA) is a legally enforceable contract signed by large shareholders. Its provisions typically bind the shareholders to make certain decisions together and limit when and to whom they can sell shares. SAs can create shareholder value when used by signatories to hold each other accountable, but they can destroy value when several join SAs to act as one large shareholder to extract benefits via lucrative insider transactions. Our research shows that the presence of the right kind of SAs can have a dramatically positive effect on the market valuation of family firms.