Marketability, control, and the pricing of block shares

Unlike in other countries, negotiated block shares have huge discounts in China. We argue that trading restrictions help to explain this puzzle. Block shares in China face trading restrictions in the open market and can only be traded in the form of block transfers at negotiated prices. Using a dataset of 233 block transfers in China between 2002 and 2003, we find that discounts on block share prices increase with the proportion of restricted shares in the ownership. The likelihood of private benefit of control has positive impact on block prices, but the effect diminishes when there are other large shareholders. Furthermore, private institutions offer a higher price than state-owned institutions.