After the promulgation of Financial Holding Company Law at the end of year 2001, the law has liberated the limitation of operations across banking, brokerage, and insurance. In order to cope with the future market competition, these institutions formed in total of 14 financial holding companies (FHCs) through self raising, merging, or acquisition. This research is aiming at the 14 FHCs and their subsidiary banks, security brokerages, and insurance companies, through applying financial ratio analysis to measure the synergy of FHCs¡¦ merging and acquisition. The sources of synergy are divided into three dimensions : operations, markets, and finance. A total of eight years of financial data is collected, including two parts: four years of pre-founding of FHCs from 1998 to 2001 and four years after founding the FHCs from 2002 to 2005. In-depth interview is conducted to look for the differences of operation performance and effect of increasing shareholder wealth after the FHCs merging and acquisition. The conclusions of this study are presented as following¡G 1.Market Synergy Dimension: The revenue increased after founding the FHCs shows that the market synergy exists and fits to expectation. FHCs could operate across fields including banking, brokerage, and insurance to provide cross selling chance for finance products. 2.Operational Synergy Dimension: The operating costs and operating costs ratio are increased after founding the FHCs. Because the FHCs do not reach the economy of scale, the unit operation cost is high and the organization of FHCs becomes large and needs more communication, which makes the decision making process inefficient, the management efficiency still needs to be improved. 3.Financial Synergy Dimension: The profit after tax and ROE are decreased after founding the FHCs, which are mainly contributed from inefficient use of financial resources and human resources as a whole group. 4.Synergy was hard to be seen within short term, which needed three to four years to make it possible. After merging or acquisition, FHCs need some time to reduce the conflicts between its subsidiaries and to conduct more efficient resource application to form FHCs synergy. 5.Market Evaluation: The market value of whole FHCs increases which increases the shareholder¡¦s wealth. This research provides the solution for increasing operation costs, including the following three points: 1.Converging the operation process. 2.Increasing economy of scale. 3.Enforcing the management efficiency.

¡§The Financial Institution Merger Act¡¨ and ¡§Financial Holding Company Act¡¨ were legislated in 2000 and 2001 in Taiwan. Based on those Acts, there are 14 financial holding companies established till now . Except for Waterland Financial Holdings, the other 13 financial holding companies include banking industry business. It is obvious that the performance of bank does influence the performance of financial holding company. Bank joins in financial holding company hoping to provide ¡§one-stop shopping¡¨ diverse financial commodities to consumers through joint-marketing, sharing resources and equipment, and hoping to gain ¡§Cross Selling¡¨, ¡§Cost Savings¡¨ and ¡¨Capital Efficiency¡¨ performance¡]3C performance¡^. It expects to pursue broadly business scope and gain more profits through this business model. The research uses Mann-Whitney test of non-parametric statistics to examine the performance of the banking subsidiary of financial holding company in order to understand whether banks can gain expected efficiency after joining in financial holding company. The empirical results are listed as follow¡G First, the ¡§cross-selling¡¨ performance of the banks after joining in financial companies is better than those before joining in financial companies. While there are no significant differentials in ¡§cost-saving¡¨ and ¡§capital-efficiency¡¨ performance. Second, the ¡§profit ability¡¨ performance of the banks after joining in financial companies is better than those before joining in financial companies. Third, there are no significant differentials in growth ability between the banks after joining in financial companies and those before joining in financial companies. Fourth, the cross-selling performance and profit ability of the individual banks such as the Chinatrust Commercial Bank, Taishin International Bank, The International Commercial Bank of China, Cathay United Bank, Taipei Fubon Bank and E.Sun Bank after joining in financial companies is better than those before joining in financial companies. Fifth, the performance of ¡§cost-saving¡¨; ¡§profit ability¡¨; ¡§growth ability¡¨ and ¡§asset quality¡¨ of the banks affiliated to the financial holding companies is better than those not affiliated to the financial holding companies. Sixth, the overall performance of the banks affiliated to the financial holding companies is better than those not affiliated to the financial holding companies. But not all of the banks affiliated to the financial holding companies after joining in financial companies perform better than before. So the banks not affiliated to the financial holding companies can grasp their own niches and enforce core business. They can develop better than before even though their scale not big enough.

In recent years, corporate strategy has drawn a lot of attention in the academic an practice. However, there are fewer literatures on how to put these ideas into practice, that is, how to quantify the interrelationships between the three key elements in strategic management¡Ðperformance, strategies, and environments, and how to judge and measure the opportunities and threats (O & T) when the environments change. This study is an attempt to answer these questions. The theoretical method developed incorporates a dynamic simultaneous equations model to express the interrelationship between these three elements. The method requires the identification of O & T in a three-step procedure. Step 1 relates the strategic components to the performance measures by the management¡¦s concept of business and philosophy of resource depolyment. Step 2 points out the suitable (unsuitable) environment circumstances for each of the scope and resource deployment elements. In Step 3, we link the results of Step 1 and Step 2 to identify and measure O & T. The above methodology is applied to the case of Cathy Financial Holding Company, a Taiwan largest listed financial holding company, over the period 2002Q2-2007Q3. We use the Instrument Variables Three Stage Least Square Method (IV-3SLS) to estimate them. In addition, we also use some tests to ascertain the validity of the selected instrument variables in order to obtain the more reliable results. Our empirical results indicate that both the firm strategies and the environments play significant roles in influencing the firm¡¦s performance. More specifically, whereas the diversification of products, and the debt allowance reservation rate are negatively associated with the cost/income ratio and positively associated with adjusted ROE and Tobin¡¦s Q. Additionally, the managers also can increase the investment efficiency by adjusting the content of the asset allocation, especially with regard to the holding of bonds. We also extract some major environment factors such as unemployment rate that affect the firm¡¦s performance and use the estimated results to identify and measure O & T.

This paper analyzes the current operating situation of financial holding companies in Taiwan. After referring to the operation of financial early warning systems of various countries, the study chooses appropriate financial ratios to establish a financial early warning model for quantitative analysis, evaluate the management efficiency of financial holding companies, discriminate the correct classification rate of prediction probability and rating system, and seek an optimal early warning model as the basis for supervision and governance of financial holding companies. In 2008, the financial tsunami that swept over the global economy resulted in a disastrous loss to the financial industry. To cope with the impact of financial crisis, most countries in the world have developed their early warning models. In Taiwan, the CAMELS framework was adopted for the establishment of Taiwan¡¦s financial early warning system and a risk-oriented auditing system. With the financial liberalization, the government of Taiwan lifted the ban on the business operation of financial holding companies step by step in order to enhance the operating efficiency of financial holding companies and activate the financial market. However, the competitive ability of Taiwan¡¦s financial industry was not significantly improved. Instead, a series of problems with the financial sector erupted one after another. The reasons for such a condition were due to more risks faced by the financial holding companies after financial deregulation. Therefore, this study used 14 financial holding companies in Taiwan as of 2006 as subjects, and constructed a financial early warning system for the original samples by using the following two kinds of models. After factor analysis¡Athe remaining financial variables ¡Alike capital adequary ratio(C2) ¡Atotal debt/equit capital (C3) ¡A total deposit/equit capital(C4), ratio of non-performing loans(A2) the operational expense ratio(M3), efficiency ratio (M4), earnings before taxes/sales(E1) and so on, have more influence on the performances of the financial holding companies in Taiwan. As to the whole efficiency of the self-examination, CAMELS still has good prediction ability and can enable predicting ability increases after joining the risk parameters¡D Predictive sample enters two models and obtains¡Gthe predictive efficiency, type error and type error of Model Two work better than Model One¡Aso in predicting samples, think CAMELS still has good predicition ability and can enable predicting ability increases after joining the risk parameters.

»Agrobench Sachsen« steht für eine einzelbetriebliche Stärken- und Schwächenanalyse landwirtschaftlicher Unternehmen. Für sächsische Unternehmen wurde eine Online-Datenbank entwickelt, um sich anhand des Jahresabschlusses mit anderen Unternehmen und den Richtwerten aus der Branche hinsichtlich der Produktivität, Liquidität, Rentabilität und Stabilität zu vergleichen. Die Nutzer können sich an den Bestwerten der Benchmark messen. Mit der neuen Online-Lösung wurden die bisherigen Methoden zur Betriebsbeurteilung in ihrer Aussagekraft und anschaulichen Darstellung erheblich verbessert.

隨著全球金融機構藉由購併朝向國際化及大型化金融集團的發展趨勢，而我國的金融機構過於零散以及規模過小，且加入WTO之後面對國內金融市場必須開放的壓力。政府對此內外問題憂慮的情況下，陸續通過「金融機構合併法」、「金融控股公司法」，期望藉此推動金融機構的整併，以提升我國金融機構的競爭力。 為了解金融控股公司有無達成政府當初立法的目的，本研究欲以財務觀點來評估金融控股公司成立至今的經營績效，又因金融機構性質的不同，樣本選取包含金控旗下13家銀行、7家證券公司、7家保險公司、3家票券公司，共計30家子公司。財務資料為金控成立前後四年的各季財務資料。將其財務比率資料加以彙整後，利用因素分析法萃取出適合衡量金融控股公司經營績效的財務績效指標，再利用Wilcoxon符號等級檢定，分別探討這四類子公司加入金控前後的經營績效是否有所差異，並加以探討個別子公司加入金控之後的獲利情況。 實證結果顯示： 一、銀行業：具顯著差異的財務比率如下：「安全性」因素構面中的淨值比率、存放比率以及淨值週轉率皆比加入前下降、而「成長性」因素構面中的淨值成長率也比加入前下降、「效率性」因素構面中的營業費用率增加，且總資產週轉率下降。以平均數來看，「獲利性」因素構面的財務比率皆比加入降低。因此，銀行業者加入金控後經營績效並未改善。 二、證券業：具顯著差異的財務比率如下：「效率性」因素構面中的淨值週轉率與固定資產週轉率下降，而營業費用率則是增加，「成長性」因素構面中的淨值成長率下降。然而以平均數來看，「獲利性」因素構面的財務比率有些微提昇。 三、保險業：僅有「財務槓桿度」此項財務比率具有顯著的降低，表示財務風險降低。以平均數來看，「資本適足性」因素構面的各項財務比率平均值皆提昇，而「成長性」因素構面的各項財務比率平均值皆降低。顯示保險業者採取保守穩健的經營方式。 四、票券業：財務比率皆沒有顯著差異。 五、個別銀行、證券、保險、票券業子公司的獲利情況作分析，有許多子公司仍屬於獲利的狀態。例如：13銀行業在加入金融控股公司之後仍有7家銀行的稅後淨利率呈顯著增加的情況，僅有1家呈顯著的減少。證券業及保險業個別子公司皆未達顯著水準。3家票券業者獲利有顯著增加的有1家。 / Following the trend of the worldwide financial institutions heading for internationalization and large-scale financial conglomerates by M&A, the financial institutions of Taiwan are too scattered and small-scale. Besides, after joining the WTO, the financial institutions of Taiwan must face the pressure of competitions upon the domestic financial market. The government of Taiwan falls into the situation of beset with difficulties both at home and abroad. Therefore, the government enacting "The Financial Institutions Merger Act" and "The Financial Holding Company Act" expects to consolidate financial institutions to improve performance in financial environment. In order to understand whether the establishment of financial holding companies has reached the purpose of legislation, the research is taken to evaluate the operation performance of financial holding companies from the financial point of view. Because of the differences of financial fields, the sample of this study contains 13 banks, 7 securities companies, 7 insurance companies and 3 bills finance companies. It adds up to 30 subsidiaries of 14 financial holding companies in Taiwan. Data include from 1998 1st season to 2006 1st season quartered financial data. At first, Factor analysis is applied to select the factor dimension. Then, the study uses Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test to test the operation performance of financial holding companies. The results of this empirical study are： 1. After bank subsidiaries join the financial holding companies, Net-worth Ratio, Growth Rate of Net-worth, Turnover Rate of Net-worth, Turnover Rate of Total Assets and Loan to Deposits Ratio are significantly dropping. Operating Expenses ratio is significantly growing up. 2. After securities subsidiaries join the financial holding companies, Turnover Rate of Net-worth, Turnover Rate of Fixed Assets and Growth Rate of Net-worth are significantly dropping. Operating Expenses ratio is significantly growing up. 3. After insurance subsidiaries join the financial holding companies, only Financial Leverage is significantly dropping. 4. There are no differences in financial ratios among bills finance companies joining the financial holding companies before and after. 5. There is still net profit margin of 7 bank subsidiaries and 1 bills finance company significantly growing up. In sum, the empirical results are found that the whole financial institutions joining the financial holding companies still don't get up to the purpose of performance improvement. However, some of the subsidiaries still earn profits.

Univ., Diss.--Louvain-la-Neuve, 2006.

The residents of Union City, NJ— a 1.2 square mile metropolis across the Hudson from Manhattan—are fond of taking to the task of adorning their city streets on their own. In the business sector of the city (that is to say, most of it) the business owners garnish their windows with red, white, and blue, and more often than not their decoration is accompanied by the uncomfortably warm smile of a middle-aged bespectacled Irish man. The man, so comically out of place in the majority Spanish-speaking, 82.3% Latino city, is referred to interchangeably as Mayor and State Senator Brian P. Stack. On the city’s border is official proof of his status on the “Welcome to Union City” sign, mirrored by its North Bergen, NJ counterpart and the name Nicholas Sacco: mayor, state senator, assistant superintendent of North Bergen schools, and principal of Horace Mann Elementary. For decades, New Jersey politicians have viewed multiple office holding as an integral part of the urban power structure. To rise up in the totem pole, one must collect public office jobs until rising to one high enough to stand on its own. While not particularly common in the less populated areas of the state, urban centers like the aforementioned Hudson County, Newark, and Camden have a tradition of sending their leaders off to Trenton without making them relinquish their jobs at home. And yet it was these very state legislators that passed a ban on the practice into law in February 2008. Supported by senator-turned-governor Jon Corzine, the ban passed with the support of political leaders like Stack and Sacco. On paper and in the pages of the New York Times it read like a rare and barely believable victory for political morality in what longtime NJ political journalists Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure call “The Soprano State”. If it sounded barely believable, it is probably because in practice it was not. A grandfather clause in the law keeps those currently in two positions of power safe from the wrath of the law. And since elections were held in between the passing of the law and the enacting of it, there are actually more dual office holders in the Legislature today than there were when the law was passed according to state newspaper the Star Ledger. This study intends answer several questions regarding the phenomenon of multiple office holding and its sudden “extinction” in New Jersey. I hypothesize that the introduction of such a law was merely cashing in on a long-standing bit of political credit that, due to the highly salient role of the practice in building machines, could not be touched. As the number of political bosses engaging in this practice diminished, and as the need to hold various offices lessened because of an increase in income and power from other sources, dual office holding became an obsolete relic of the 1990s political machine structures. Thus it became feasible to ban the practice with a grandfather clause for those that had established themselves through this old system, with much credit in the field of ethics to be gained by all involved—every dual office holder, legislator, and the governor himself. On a micro level, it aspires to investigate why early 2008 was an opportune time for such a law and where this grandfather clause arouse from and why. Although the tradition has existed previously in less populated areas of New Jersey, especially in the 1940s, at some point (peaking in the 1990s) dual office holding became an essential component in the structure of an urban political machine. On a macro level, this study seeks to explain the place of such a practice in the creation and maintenance of the traditional urban political machine, a structure with a lush history in New Jersey that is still alive and kicking today. It attempts to begin a dialogue with existing literature on urban politics centered around the practice of dual office holding. To do this, the study needs to paint as vivid a portrait as possible of the modern urban political machine, its bosses, and every gear that moves its structure. For this it will heavily rely on literature describing the initial development of political machines of Tammany Hall and similar structures around the country, paying especial attention to the impact of immigration, given that preliminary research is showing a pronounced impact on the system from the wave of Latino immigrants beginning with the rise of the Cuban Revolution in 1958. This new wave of immigrants appears to have jump-started the machines and replenished them with an entire new wave of fodder ready to be introduced to the patronage system post-naturalization (a matter of five years’ time). Of particular note in this body of urban political research is Steven Erie’s Rainbow’s End, which I have discovered to be the definitive work in the field of immigration and its impact on urban political machines. Working with this broad field of urban politics in mind, I also intend on illustrating in detail the specific political machine structures of the three largest urban communities in New Jersey: Newark, Camden, and the general Hudson County area (as the cities of Hudson County tend to be about 1-2 square miles in area excepting Jersey City, there is little that distinguishes one from another culturally and politically). In order to do this, I must work with data specific to the state, beginning with a database of multiple office holders over time. I have constructed this database over the course of several decades and am currently developing it in the 1930s using biographical sketches in the New Jersey Legislative Manuals published yearly in the New Jersey State Archives of Trenton. Unfortunately, this means that my research is limited to multiple office holders who have one job in the state legislature, but as all signs point to most dual office holders preferring to have a state and local job rather than two of either, I do not believe this will seriously hinder my research. Supplementary research will also come from personal stories, which I plan on gathering from interviews with those deeply involved in urban politics. The study will include interviews with multiple office holders from these regions themselves, as well as those close to them—journalists, chiefs of staff, and those receiving patronage and practicing loyalty to the leaders. The goal of this study is to shed some light on the dark, backroom world of urban politics through the lens of this one common practice among the machine leaders. This one practice, currently a topic of much controversy due to this recent law, could very well be the key to understanding the development of machines, their power over citizens and their ability to maintain themselves over such extended periods of time.

The aim with this study was to develop a method to estimate total area of hair lichens and to compare morphological traits and water storage in them. Hair lichens are an important component of the epiphytic flora in boreal forests. Their growth is primarily regulated by available water, and light when hydrated. Lichens have no active mechanism to regulate their water content and their water holding capacity (WHC, mg H2O/cm2) is thus an important factor for how long they remain wet and metabolically active. In this study, the water uptake and loss in five hair lichens (Alectoria sarmentosa, three Bryoria spp. and Usnea dasypoga) were compared. Their area were estimated by combining photography, scanning and a computer programme that estimates the area of objects. Total area overlap of individual branches was calculated for each species, to estimate total area of the lichen. WHC and specific thallus mass (STM) (mg DM/cm2) of the lichens were calculated. Bryoria spp. had a significantly lower STM compared to U. dasypoga and A. sarmentosa, due to its thinner branches and higher branch density. Bryoria also had a lower WHC compared to A. sarmentosa, promoting a rapid uptake and loss of water. All species had a significant relationship between STM and WHC, above a 1:1 line for all species except U. dasypoga. The lower relationship in U. dasypoga is explained by its less developed branching in combination with its thick branches.

Using a panel data analysis of a sample of 80 listed non-financial Jordanian firms during the period from 2000 to 2011, we investigated the corporate cash-holding decision. The firm’s decision to hold cash has come to the fore in last two or three years as a result of the recent global financial crisis, and the impact that this has had on the firms’ ability to raise funds from external sources. There is evidence in the US, for example, that firms have increased their holdings of cash as a result of increasing constraints from external sources. This current study therefore examines this issue from the point of view of a developing economy. We started by investigating the empirical determinants of corporate cash holdings; the results showed that firm size and growth opportunities have no significant effect on corporate cash-holding decisions, while firm’s cash flow, leverage, and liquid assets substitute have a significant negative effect on cash-holding decisions, and profitability and cash dividends have a positive effect on cash-holding decisions. Then we investigated empirically how cash-holding affects the value of corporate firms. Based on Fama and French’s (1998) valuation model and Faulkender and Wang’s (2006) model, the results showed that the marginal value of each Jordanian Dinar (JD) is valued at a discounted value of 0.41 JD; with higher leverage the marginal value of cash is declining, with a higher level of cash the marginal value of cash is increasing and, finally, cash dividends have no significant effect on shareholders’ value. We also investigated empirically how a group of explanatory variables affect a firm’s debt ratio by focusing on the liquidity variable. Results showed that the total debt ratio is positively affected by firm size and is negatively affected by growth opportunities, profitability, assets tangibility and total liquidity, cash, and non-cash liquidity. The long-term debt ratio is positively affected by firm size, non-debt tax shield, asset tangibility, total liquidity, cash, and non-cash liquidity, while the long-term debt ratio is negatively affected by growth opportunities and profitability. For the short-term debt models, the debt ratio is negatively affected by firm size, asset tangibility, and liquidity in its different forms. An investigation into the speed of adjustment showed that Jordanian firms quickly adjusted the total and long-term debt ratio, while they do not have an optimal or target short-term debt ratio.