Unique Dividend for Retail Shareholders: Evidence from Shareholder Perk

Shareholder perks are in-kind gifts or purchase discounts made available to shareholders and are common at many firms. Shareholder perks return value to investors in a way that disproportionally rewards small shareholders. Using data from Japanese firms, we show that firms initiating perk programs attract small individual shareholders and decrease the concentration of share ownership. Firms that initiate perk programs experience an increase in...