L'activisme des investisseurs institutionnels, l'asymétrie d'informations et la liquidité du marché

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of institutional investors’ ownership and their activism on informational asymmetry and stock market liquidity using a sample of 162 French-listed companies over a 3-year period (2007-2009). The findings show that the proportion of institutional investors, and particularly, pension funds positively influence stock market liquidity, which confirms the signalling and trading hypotheses. These investors perform important trades among their portfolios, leading to favourable effects on the market liquidity. These shareholders’ real involvement in companies is considered as a governance mechanism that tends to contribute to a better liquidity.