Foreign Ownership, Foreign Directors and the Profitability of Malaysian Listed Companies

With an overall panel of 4,176 firm-year observations drawn from a sample of 348 Malaysia listed companies over the period 1999-2010, fixed-effect panel data regression found that percentage of foreign equity ownership, appointments of foreign chairman and foreign chief executive director did not have any significant relationship with firm's return on equity (ROE). However, increase in percentage of foreign directors sitting on the board significantly improved ROE. Besides, only when foreign investors have dominant (above 50%) voting rights, ROE increased. Construction and wholesale trade sectors sub-panels showed the appointments of foreign chairman and foreign chief executive director negatively influenced ROE.