The Performance of Government-Linked Companies in Malaysia

Abstract

This study examines the performance of selected government-linked companies (GLCs) versus non-GLC matching firms, during the period 2008-2013. Our sample of GLCs is drawn from the list contained in the GLC Transformation Program of the Government of Malaysia. Three performance measures are used – ROA, ROE and Tobin’s Q ratio. Two methods of analysis are performed: univariate analysis and multiple regressions. The results strongly indicate that GLCs perform worse than their non-GLC counterparts in all performance measures and in both univariate and multivariate tests. The performance of both GLCs and non-GLCs is found to be negatively related to leverage and board size. Further, non-GLCs performance is also found to be related to firm size and non-duality.