Ownership Structure and Dividend Policy of Listed Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria: A Tobit Regression Analysis

Abstract

Free cash flow hypothesis posit that regular paying of dividend can reduce agency conflict and through this, the range of future probable misuse of resources by management reduces. Ownership structure has been identified to have relationship with dividend policy of a firm.  Though the relationship is different for different class of owners and at different level; it does not influence dividend policy uniformly. Although, the linkage between the two has been monitored by many researchers, yet empirical researches do not provide consensus as to the direction of the relationships. Thus, the paper investigates the likelihood impact of ownership structure on dividend policy in the context of agency relation while using managerial ownership, institutional ownership, ownership concentration and foreign ownershipon dividend policy in the listed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs)in Nigeria. The research designs are Correlational and ex-post facto using secondary data extracted from the sampled companies’ annual financial reports for the period 2010-2014. Maximum likelihood (panel data tobit regression) is adopted as a technique of analysis for the study, using a sample of ten (10) out of seventeen (17) listed DMBs in Nigeria that served as population. The result shows that managerial ownership and ownership concentration are likely to have significant negative impact on dividend policy of listed DMBsin Nigeria, while institutional ownership is found to have likely significant positive impact on dividend policy of listed DMBs in Nigeria. But foreign ownership is found not to have likely significant impact on dividend policyof listed DMBsin Nigeria. Based on the findings, it is recommended among others that policy makers (Security and Exchange Commission and Corporate Affairs Commission) to design future policies where dividend payment could be facilitated and the diverse range of shareholders to be satisfied most especially minority shareholders. And that a limit should be set for managers on the proportion of shares to be held as this can facilitate dividend payment.