This study analyzes ownership and firm performance. Ownership categories include family ownership, listed companies with decentralized ownership, state-owned companies, and foreign-owned companies. We utilize both univariate and multivariate methods in the analysis. In the multivariate analysis various firm characteristics, such as industry, size, age, and innovativeness are controlled for. Using data on top 500 Finnish firms over 19862004 we find that the rate of return on capital, as well as debt-equity ratio in family firms are equal to those in foreign-owned, listed non-family, and state-owned companies. In addition, foreign-owned firms seem to have higher rate of return on capital than state-owned and listed non-family companies. On the other hand, they have grown slower than the other three firm groups, on average. We also find some evidence that small firms have performed on average better than large ones.
