As can be seen in Fig. 1, cash holdings first decrease with the equity ownership of
managers, consistent with the incentive-alignment argument. Companies with managerial
ownership between 20% and 30% have the lowest cash holdings. Nevertheless,
after reaching a minimum, the association between cash and managerial
ownership becomes positive, providing some support for the entrenchment effect
of managerial ownership. This increase is not monotonic either. It seems that companies
with managers having substantial shareholdings tend to have lower cash holdings
than those with moderate managerial ownership levels. Consequently, our
preliminary investigation points to a cubic functional form to depict the relationship
between cash holdings and managerial ownership. We measure managerial ownership
as the percentage of equity ownership by directors.