Abstract:
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has recently received considerable attention in literature.
One of the vehicles by which companies can conform to CSR in South Africa is Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). In this regard, BEE has been employed to assist previously disadvantaged
groups of investors obtain a larger share of the equity of South African listed companies. The question
has often been asked whether the announcement of BEE transactions by listed companies increases
shareholder wealth. This article tries to answer this question by examining the share performance
of 125 BEE transactions involving 95 companies during the period January 2002 to July 2006.
The results indicate a positive relation between BEE transaction announcements and shareholder
wealth creation, but only during the last part of the period covered by the study.
