Governance mechanisms in Spanish banks. Does ownership matter?

This paper examines the governance of Spanish banks regarding two main issues. First, does poor economic performance activate governance interventions that favor the removal of executive directors and the merger of non-performing banks? And, second, does the relationship between governance intervention and economic performance vary with the ownership form of the bank? We find a negative relationship between performance and governance intervention for banks, but the results change for each form of ownership and each type of intervention. Internal-control mechanisms work for Independent Commercial banks, but Savings banks show weaker internal mechanisms of control and the only significant relationship between performance and governance intervention that appears is for mergers. The Spanish Savings banks, with a peculiar form of ownership that, in fact, implies a lack of ownership, give voice to several stakeholder groups with no clear allocation of property rights. Nevertheless, their economic performance is not generally affected. Product-market competition compensates for those weaker internal governance mechanisms, and non-performing banks are not fully protected from disappearing.