HELSINKI: Guest lecture by Professor Yulia Ilina and Professor Irina Berezinets, St. Petersburg University. Topic: “Board of Directors, Dividend Policy and Ownership Structure in Russia”

Institutionally Russia could be considered as an emerging market with specific corporate governance practices, being characterized by highly concentrated ownership, low shareholders rights protection, limited number of traded companies and an important role that the state plays both in economy and companies capital.

Among specific features of Russian corporate governance model one could mention the following characteristics of board of directors - too much involvement of the board in operational activities of the company, unclear differentiation between responsibilities of the board and executive bodies, relatively small percentage of women on boards, independent directors still not fully recognized as a corporate governance mechanism in Russian companies. Ilina and Berezinets have investigated the link between board structure and performance of Russian public companies measured by Tobin’s Q. Their sample includes 207 Russian public companies that were traded on RTS (Russian Trading System) during the period of 2007 – 2011. Their results demonstrate that smaller and bigger size boards are more effective comparing with medium size boards as the former provide greater Tobin’s Q. They found a positive association between the gender diversity and market performance. Despite of some negative trends in corporate governance caused by the current economic crisis, it is worth noting that in general corporate governance practice in Russian public companies is gradually improving during last years.