Analysis of Official Market Documents and Presentation of a Simulated Firm-Level Model

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of investment fund ownership on the performance ‎of companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange “Tadawul”. The expansion of the asset ‎management industry in Saudi Arabia and the increasing role of professional investors have ‎raised the question of whether the presence of funds in corporate ownership structures is merely ‎a consequence of selecting large and profitable companies, or whether it can also improve the ‎performance of investee firms through managerial monitoring, reducing information asymmetry, ‎improving liquidity, lowering the cost of capital, and enhancing investment efficiency.This ‎research examines the positive and negative channels through which funds may influence firms, ‎based on agency theory, the active monitoring perspective, information asymmetry theory, ‎resource dependence theory, and the literature on institutional investment horizons.The ‎descriptive section of the study relies on official statistics from the Saudi Capital Market ‎Authority and the Saudi Exchange. According to official reports, the market capitalization of the ‎Main Market of Tadawul reached approximately SAR ۸.۸۲ trillion at the end of ۲۰۲۵, annual ‎trading value was approximately SAR ۱.۳۰ trillion, and the number of listed companies reached ‎‎۲۶۶. Furthermore, assets under management in the Saudi capital market exceeded SAR ۱.۲ ‎trillion at the end of ۲۰۲۵, representing an ۱۸% increase.To demonstrate how the hypotheses can ‎be tested, due to the absence of a unified public database containing all fund ownership ‎information across all companies, a simulated panel dataset was constructed consisting of ۸۰ ‎non-financial companies over the period ۲۰۱۹–۲۰۲۵, with ۵۶۰ firm-year observations.The ‎simulated results indicate that fund ownership has positive relationships with return on assets, ‎firm value, liquidity, investment efficiency, and sustainability disclosure. The lagged ownership ‎test also confirms a positive relationship with profitability; however, the moderating effect of ‎corporate governance is statistically insignificant in the simulated scenario.This finding suggests ‎that stronger governance may independently improve performance but does not necessarily ‎strengthen the effect of fund ownership in all samples.The findings are consistent with Saudi ‎market studies regarding the positive relationship between institutional ownership, financial ‎sustainability, and environmental and social reporting. However, none of the simulated results ‎should be presented as actual estimates for Tadawul, and the publishable version of the study ‎requires extracting actual fund ownership data from fund reports, shareholder disclosures, and ‎reliable financial databases.‎

کلیدواژه ها:

Investment funds ، institutional ownership ، firm performance ، investment efficiency ، liquidity ، ‎corporate governance ، Tadawul ، Saudi Arabia.‎