It may be illegal for institutional investors to buy-and-hold large equity stakes in a less competitive industry with high market concentration.

Olivia London

2017-11-27 07:39:00 Mon ET

Is it anti-competitive and illegal for passive indexers and mutual funds to place large stock bets in specific industries with high market concentration? Harvard law professor Einer Elhauge suggests that it is illegal for a passive institutional investor to buy-and-hold large equity stakes in a less competitive industry with high concentration, such as the U.S. airlines industry with 4 or fewer key players. In contrast, passive indexers would be safe from antitrust concerns if most other institutional investors stop buying multiple public companies in a specific sector with high market concentration.

The basic rationale relates to the fact that if institutional investors such as index funds and mutual funds hold shares of multiple companies in a specific industry, these oligopolistic firms would tend to compete less vigorously with one another. When senior executives make business decisions in the best interests of their institutional investors, this logic suggests less fierce product market competition and greater price discrimination for consumers in addition to the private benefits of portfolio diversification. The net result would be more stable share prices and more favorable rents and returns to these passive indexers and mutual funds.

Although key critics may disagree with this novel thesis, it is quite controversial to judge whether it is legal for institutional investors to retain major equity stakes in oligopolistic firms in a given industry with high market concentration.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

HPE CEO Meg Whitman decides to step down after her 6-year stint at the technology giant.

Charlene Vos

2017-11-07 09:38:00 Tuesday ET

HPE CEO Meg Whitman decides to step down after her 6-year stint at the technology giant.

HPE CEO Meg Whitman has run both eBay and Hewlett Packard within Fortune 500 and now has decided to step down after her 6-year stint at the technology giant

+See More

Brent crude oil prices spike to $70-$75 per barrel after the Trump administration stops waiving economic sanctions on Iran.

Jacob Miramar

2019-05-13 12:38:00 Monday ET

Brent crude oil prices spike to $70-$75 per barrel after the Trump administration stops waiving economic sanctions on Iran.

Brent crude oil prices spike to $70-$75 per barrel after the Trump administration stops waiving economic sanctions on Iranian oil exports. U.S. State Secret

+See More

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is India's equivalent to Warren Buffett in America.

Jonah Whanau

2016-10-19 00:00:00 Wednesday ET

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is India's equivalent to Warren Buffett in America.

India's equivalent to Warren Buffett in America, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, offers several key lessons for stock market investors: When the press o

+See More

President Donald Trump criticizes Amazon over taxes and jobs.

Monica McNeil

2017-08-19 14:43:00 Saturday ET

President Donald Trump criticizes Amazon over taxes and jobs.

In a recent tweet, President Donald Trump criticizes Amazon over taxes and jobs. Without providing specific evidence, Trump accuses of the e-commerce retail

+See More

CEO overconfidence and corporate performance

Laura Hermes

2022-11-05 11:32:00 Saturday ET

CEO overconfidence and corporate performance

CEO overconfidence and corporate performance Malmendier and Tate (JFE 2008, JF 2005) argue that overconfident CEOs are more likely to initiate mergers an

+See More

AYA free finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube March 2019

Andy Yeh Alpha

2019-03-31 11:40:00 Sunday ET

AYA free finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube March 2019

AYA Analytica free finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube March 2019 In this podcast, we discuss several topical issues as of March 2019: (1) Sargent-Wallac

+See More