Moreover, outside investors have no control over management, and even basic shareholder voting rights are limited.

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The France family, which owns Nascar, is also the largest shareholder of ISC and controls the voting rights.

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But a recent study by Harvard, Wharton and Stanford found that, overall, shareholder return decreases as insiders' voting rights increase.

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These include shareholdings worth at least 5% of a company's voting rights (if the shareholder is an employee) or 25% (if not).

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No shareholder can control more than 20% of the voting rights.

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After a rocky start, a new market launched in 2000 the Novo Mercado has led to greater shareholder democracy, ending an era of old-style corporate governance in which investors with small financial stakes monopolised voting rights in companies.

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Hedge funds and mutual funds who have the right to vote in shareholder elections, as these firms are the stockholders and people just buy into the mutual fund itself, take these voting rights seriously because they have a stake in the outcome.

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