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

McKinsey Global Institute analyzes 315 U.S. cities in terms of how tech automation affects their workers in the next 10 years.

Dan Rochefort

2019-08-10 21:44:00 Saturday ET

McKinsey Global Institute analyzes 315 U.S. cities in terms of how tech automation affects their workers in the next 10 years.

McKinsey Global Institute analyzes 315 U.S. cities and 3,000 counties in terms of how tech automation affects their workers in the next 5 to 10 years. This

+See More

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett shared their best business decisions in a 1998 panel discussion.

Laura Hermes

2017-11-13 07:42:00 Monday ET

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett shared their best business decisions in a 1998 panel discussion.

Top 2 wealthiest men Bill Gates and Warren Buffett shared their best business decisions in a 1998 panel discussion with students at the University of Washin

+See More

BAC chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett points out that U.S. corporate debt accumulation can cause the next financial crisis.

John Fourier

2018-09-23 08:37:00 Sunday ET

BAC chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett points out that U.S. corporate debt accumulation can cause the next financial crisis.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch's chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett points out that U.S. corporate debt (not household credit supply or bank ca

+See More

The financial crisis of 2008-2009 affects many millennials as they bear the primary costs of college tuition, residential demand, health care, and childcare.

Peter Prince

2019-06-23 08:30:00 Sunday ET

The financial crisis of 2008-2009 affects many millennials as they bear the primary costs of college tuition, residential demand, health care, and childcare.

The financial crisis of 2008-2009 affects many millennials as they bear the primary costs of college tuition, residential demand, health care, and childcare

+See More

Macro economic innovations and asset alphas show significant mutual causation.

Olivia London

2023-12-03 11:33:00 Sunday ET

Macro economic innovations and asset alphas show significant mutual causation.

Macro innovations and asset alphas show significant mutual causation. April 2023   This brief article draws from the recent research publicati

+See More

The current homeland industrial policy stance worldwide seeks to embed the new notion of global resilience into economic statecraft.

Daisy Harvey

2025-01-31 09:26:00 Friday ET

The current homeland industrial policy stance worldwide seeks to embed the new notion of global resilience into economic statecraft.

The current homeland industrial policy stance worldwide seeks to embed the new notion of global resilience into economic statecraft. In the broader cont

+See More