現金分紅是上市公司回報股東的根本途徑,然而基于數字游戲的"高送轉"亂象卻長期充斥我國資本市場。本文以定向增發作為研究A股"高送轉"現象的切入點,結果發現:上市公司在定向增發的新股解禁期附近推出"高送轉"的頻率顯著提高,這一舉動主要是為了迎合參與定向增發的外部投資者,幫助外部投資者進行股票減持,是一種動機異化的機會主義股利分配行為;通過定向增發融資的上市公司如果在定向增發后進行了"高送轉",這些公司相比于未進行"高送轉"的上市公司業績更差、關聯交易更頻繁、大股東占款更高、盈余管理更激進、投資效率更低,這些發現意味著"高送轉"現象的存在削弱了外部投資者發揮積極參與、積極治理功能的良性機制。本文為監管機構近期加強對"高送轉"亂象的監管力度提供了經驗證據,也支持了新修訂的《證券法》中擬明確現金分紅的決定。

It is cash dividends that firms could really pay back to their investors,however,in Chinese A-share equity market,cosmetic payout policies like-large stock dividends(LSD)have been pervasive for several years.In this paper,we adopt private offering(PO)as the setting to study LSD,and figure out:(1)firms are more likely to make LSD deliberately during the shares’ off-locking period of outside PO investors to cater for their need in share sales;(2)for those firms raising money through private placement,the subsample of firms issuing LSD are shown to have worse performance,more frequent connected-party transactions,more tunneled by other receivables,more aggressive earnings management and lower investment efficiency after PO,indicating that the governance role of outside PO investors is discounted and impeded by LSD.Our paper also provides empirical evidence for regulators’ tough attitude towards LSD in recent days and echoes the new security law’s appeal for cash dividends.