BOARD INDEPENDENCE AND OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE ON FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF LISTED DEPOSIT MONEY BANKS IN NIGERIA

Financial scandals around the world are blamed on wide spread alteration in accounting earnings by managers. Board independence and ownership structure are expected to enhance the financial performance. Hence, the study investigates the effect of board independence and ownership structure on financial performance of listed deposit money banks (DMBs) in Nigeria. The variables used were board independence, block holder ownership, foreign ownership, and managerial ownership while financial performance was measured using return on equity. The population comprises of 14 listed deposit money banks, while 13 were used as sample, due to non-availability of data for one of the firms. Secondary data was employed and data were extracted from the financial statements of the firms covering the period from 2013 to 2022. Panel corrected standard errors regression and Stata 13 was used as technique and statistical package respectively for data analysis. The findings revealed that, board independence and managerial ownership have positive and insignificant effect on financial performance of listed DMBs in Nigeria, block holder ownership have a positive and significant effect on financial performance of listed DMBs in Nigeria, while foreign ownership have a negative and significant effect on financial performance of listed DMBs in Nigeria. From the findings, the study recommended amongst others that, the percentage of non-executive director to total number of directors experts should be improved upon as this is expected to constrain managers from unethical behaviors and as well enhance financial performance.