Introduction:

In their July/August 1997 edition, Mother Jones – a popular U.S. magazine – presented a listing of the “20 Better Places to Work” based on their track records in charitable giving, fair labor practices, progressive benefits, sound environmental practices, and satisfied employees. While this magazine in no way gives an indication that these companies would make superior investments, the implication to investors is that these companies have admirable qualities. In a similar way the German Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth presented a survey of best practice family oriented German companies in summer 2000. Again, there is no concrete link between family orientation and investment opportunity, but again there are companies with outstanding qualities. Our analysis addresses the question whether these admirable German companies make good investments. We will compute holding period returns of an exchange listed subsample and compare them which a benchmark and the market. In addition, we will compare share price performance on a riskadjusted basis, using Jensen’s alpha, Sharpe and Treynor measures. Finally, we also test whether an announcement effect occurs when the Ministry’s survey was released to the public.