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Any period of economic crisis affects the solvency of companies. It gives rise to debates about whether listed companies should continue to pay dividends to shareholders, which is at the heart of the tensions between the company's stakeholders. This article provides an overview of the shareholder payout policies of major French listed companies and an analysis of the decisions taken during the health crisis of 2020.; Toute période de crise économique affecte la solvabilité des entreprises. Elle fait également naître des débats autour de l’opportunité pour les sociétés cotées de poursuivre les versements de dividendes aux actionnaires, au cœur des tensions entre parties prenantes de l’entreprise. Cet article propose un état des lieux des politiques de rémunération des actionnaires par les grandes sociétés françaises cotées et une analyse des décisions prises lors de la crise sanitaire de 2020.

International audience; This article analyzes the impact of employee share ownership and representation in governance structures on the performance and the payout policy of French listed companies. This empirical work is based on data from a combination of three sources (IODS, Eikon and Thomson Reuters) for a sample of French listed companies listed over the period 2000‑2014. Our results show that employee participation in corporate governance has different impacts. Employee share ownership helps to increase corporate profitability but also to limit dividend payments and share buyback practices. At the same time, employee participation in the Board of Directors (or Supervisory Board) moderates dividend payments to shareholders. These results provide new insights regarding the renewal of corporate governance and the evolution of payout policy.

International audience; This paper investigates how changes in the macro-financial environment impact the way in which capital market prices react to dividend announcements. Using a sample of 841 dividend announcements by French companies belonging to the SBF 120 Index, we examined the role of changes in ambiguity (Knightian uncertainty) level around the announcement date (implied volatility [VCAC] is used as an empirical proxy for ambiguity) on the response of investors to dividend information release. Based on the global sample and applying the interaction methodology we found that, consistent with ambiguity theory, an increase in VCAC leads investors to place more weight on bad dividend news than on good dividend news. When the sample is split, depending on the VCAC sign, results are more complex. We actually obtained a larger asymmetric impact between good and bad news for the larger window [-15; +15] but not for the smaller one [-1, +1]. Nevertheless, in this last case, we observed that, consistent with the ambiguity explanation, the reaction to good (bad) news decreases (increases) dramatically when ambiguity increases, compared to when ambiguity decreases.

Share repurchases announcement are discretionary transactions that stimulate analyst's activity. We use the multi-dimensional concept of informativeness to capture the integration of information in the stock prices. Our empirical test comprises American and European buybacks in the period 2000-2013. We refer to three independent measures of informativeness: the synchronicity measure introduced by Roll (1988), the Amihud (2002) illiquidity ratio, and the Llorente, Michaely, Saar, and Wang (2002) measure. We relate these three measures to analysts' activity in earning forecasting. We show that share repurchase decisions initiate a process, stimulate revisions by analysts, but do not systematically improve the informativeness of stock prices. An effective information process may develop if first it is pegged on negative cumulative abnormal return (CAR) values, and/or if the analysts are revising downward their earnings forecasts. We also highlight that informativeness improves asymmetrically depending on whether a change in the dividend policy occurs simultaneously.

This paper provides new evidence on dividend policy by studying optional stock dividends, a mechanism that allows firms to cut cash payouts without a negative market reaction. We find that highly leveraged firms with limited cash holdings and large institutional ownership are more likely to offer optional stock dividends to their hareholders. These firms are the most committed to paying dividends, and optional stock dividends provide them with an opportunity for a stealth cut in dividends during economic downturns. Shareholders overwhelmingly approve optional stock dividends at general meetings with the majority favoring stock dividends over cash dividends. Further, in contrast to dividend cuts, shareholders do not view optional stock dividends as bad news. Our results support the monitoring explanation of optional stock dividends and show that shareholders value a firm’s ability and willingness to pay dividends, even if the final cash payout is reduced.

We study the effect of dividend taxes on the payout and investment policies of publicly listed firms. To do so, we exploit a unique setting in Switzerland where, following the corporate tax reform of 2011, some but not all firms were suddenly able to pay tax-exempt dividends to their shareholders. Using a difference-in-differences specification, we show that treated firms swiftly and permanently increase their dividend payout by around 30% compared to control firms after the tax cut. When studying the effect of agency conflicts, we show that the impact on the payout is less pronounced for firms in which the controlling shareholders have more voting rights than cash-flow rights. We find a significant positive abnormal stock return after the announcement of the payment of a tax-exempt dividend. However, reducing dividend taxes does not boost investment. This is due to a significant drop in retained earnings and to the fact that equity issuances do not surge after the tax cut. Our evidence is consistent with models where the marginal source of finance is retained earnings, and inconsistent with the neoclassical theory of dividend taxation.

This article investigates the impact that prevailing investor demand for dividend payers and financial firm's characteristics have on the probability of starting or continuing to pay dividends. To test this prediction, we use probit regressions on panel data. The major finding that emerges from our analyses is: in large companies characterized by high profitability and low debt levels, investors' demand for dividend payers has a positive and significant impact on the probability that a manager will decide to pay positive dividends.

Cet article propose d'étudier -à travers des régressions multiples sur des données agrégées de panel- l'apport de l'imperfection comportementale dans la compréhension de la décision de distribution de la valeur créée aux profits des actionnaires des entreprises du SBF 250 entre 1990 et 2010. Les résultats obtenus montrent que le comportement de distribution des dirigeants des entreprises nouvellement introduites au SBF250 sur toute la période allant de 1990 et 2010 est impacté significativement et positivement par la prime de dividendes que les investisseurs attribuent aux entreprises distributrices.

This article proposes to study the dividend decision under the overconfident managers' approach by using a methodology resulting from the textual data analysis. We test the presence of the overconfidence biases' when managers decide to pay dividends for their shareholders. The intuition behind consists in supposing a greater propensity of overconfident managers with the dividend payment. The major finding that emerges from our analyses is: the managers of the SBF250 companies are more confidents when they talk about dividends and financial or accounting results; they are overconfident when they talk about the strategy, and finally managers are not or less confidents when their companies are exposed to an uncertain environment., Cet article propose d'étudier la décision de distribution du dividende sous l'approche des dirigeants surconfiants en utilisant une méthodologie issue de l'analyse des données textuelles. Il s'agit de tester la présence du biais d'excès de confiance chez les dirigeants lorsqu'ils décident de verser des dividendes à leurs actionnaires. L'intuition derrière consiste à supposer une plus grande propension des dirigeants surconfiants à la distribution du dividende. Les principaux résultats obtenus montrent que les dirigeants des grandes sociétés cotées en France sont assez confiants lorsqu'il s'agit du dividende ou des résultats comptables et financiers, surconfiants lorsqu'il s'agit de stratégie et ils sont peu confiants lorsque l'environnement est incertain.

International audience; This paper studies payout policies of listed family firms. The recent evolutions of family firms models bring to study two types of agency conflicts, the one between shareholders and manager (type I), and the one between majority and minority shareholders (type II). Our results show that payout policies are related to the intensity of the two types of agency conflicts which are overall less strong than in non family firms.; L'objectif de cette étude est d'analyser la relation entre les politiques de distribution des entreprises familiales cotées et deux grands types de conflits d'agence dans les entreprises familiales, entre actionnaires et dirigeant (type I), et entre actionnaires majoritaires et minoritaires (type II). Les résultats sur les entreprises du SBF 250 montrent que les montants distribués sont liés à ces deux composantes du conflit d'agence, qui est globalement moins fort dans les entreprises familiales.

International audience; Stock option plans are used to increase managerial incentives, and business practices usually set the exercise price equal to the stock market price. The purpose of this paper is to underline the importance of a process of negotiation leading to a possible equilibrium contract satisfying both managers and shareholders. The two key variables of the model are the percentage of equity capital offered by the shareholders to the managers and the exercise price of the options that may be at a discount. We explicitly introduce risk aversion and information asymmetries in the form of (i) an economic uncertainty in the gain of cash flow, (ii) possibly biased information between the two parties and (iii) a noise in the valuation price of the stock in the market. The existence of a process of negotiation between shareholders and managers leading to a possible disclosure of private information is highlighted. As a conclusion, we show that “efficient” stock option plans should be granted in a context of trade-off between the percentage of capital awarded to managers and the discount in stock price

International audience; This paper tries to complement the purely quantitative approach of pay out policies by providing a qualitative description of dividend and share repurchase policies in France. Through a field study with 12 French decision-makers, it helps to understand explanatory elements of pay out policies. Our study provides evidence that pay out decision is the result of a consensus between various elements: financial capacity of the firm, external influences, and shareholding pressure. The paper supports elements from the literature: influence of financial variables, signal function of pay out and smoothing of dividend policy. It introduces new elements that may lead to interesting questioning: existence of pay out culture in firms, influence of managers' characteristics or competitors' behavior. And at last, it questions the share repurchase role of pay out, the role of taxes in pay out decisions and underlines majority shareholders' great influence.; Cet article s'attache avant tout à bousculer l'approche purement quantitative des politiques de dividende ou de rachat d'actions en présentant une description qualitative de ces politiques. Notre étude terrain auprès de 12 décideurs français apporte certes un éclairage hexagonal mais il permet surtout une meilleure compréhension des éléments explicatifs ou d'influence des politiques de distribution. Notre étude présente la distribution de liquidités aux actionnaires comme le résultat d'un consensus entre plusieurs variables : capacité financière de l'entreprise, influences externes et pression de l'actionnariat. Nos résultats confortent la fonction de signal de la distribution et la politique de lissage des dividendes. De nouveaux éléments venant renforcer la réflexion apparaissent : existence d'une culture de la distribution, influence des caractéristiques des managers et des concurrents. Enfin cet article remet en question le rôle de distribution des rachats d'actions et souligne la forte influence des actionnaires majoritaires.