The subjekt of this diploma thesis is evaluation of the investment project of the company in order to prepare an investment recommendation fot the company. In the theoretical part of the diploma thesis, there will be presented procedures, which will be applied in decision making in the practical part of the thesis. In this case, investment options will be assessed using these methods and the most appropriate investment recommendation for the company will be drawn up.

The thesis deals with an evaluation of the investment project for storage automation in an engineering company. The theoretical part of the thesis describes topics of investment and investment decision-making, methods of evaluation of investment projects, sources of investment financing and storage. At the beginning of the practical part of the thesis, the realized investment project was introduced and its technical specification was presented. In the analytical part of the thesis, the company's balance sheet was evaluated, gathering and analysis of calculation data was carried and a calculation of yearly revenues and costs was performed. Subsequently, calculations of investment efficiency were performed using dynamic methods of evaluation of investment projects and sensitivity analysis of input factors. In the final part of the thesis, the evaluation of the results was performed and recommendations for future investments of the company in the same technology were set.

The purpose of my master‘s thesis is to open new school within EWTO in Vysočina region, concretely in Žďár nad Sázavou, and consequently spread the influence of EWTO in Czech republic. Part of my thesis is dedicated to determine the best investment option, analyse external environment, define conditions for foundation of a new school, propose convenient pricing policy and compile entrepreneurial plan in order to get mid-term bank loan.

The Master Thesis focuses on an investment project’s economic effectiveness and stability of financing. In the theoretical part of the thesis there are basic ideas on investment projects explained and further the thesis deals with project lifecycle phases, cash flow predictions, methods of investment economic evaluation, factors that influence investment decision making and sources of project’s financing. In the practical part there are these theoretical findings applied on a real investment project and by analyzing it is searching for a recommendation for a project realization.

Real estate development investment requires a large capital funding but it has slow payback with many risks and uncertainties in the investment. The current approach by using NPV to evaluate this type of investment is not adequate anymore. This is because NPV does not thoroughly capture the uncertainties in the investment and the method ignores the management flexibility whether to postpone or abandon the project in the future. An alternative approach that addresses these issues is to use real options to evaluate this type of investment. The thesis uses the real option model that was proposed by McDonald and Siegel (1986) to evaluate real estate development investment. The model captures value and cost uncertainty in the investment and considers that managements have the flexibility to defer the investment into the future. The thesis analyzes the model critically by sensitivity analyses and shows that using the model requires the input parameters to be carefully determined, especially the ones that relate to unit rental rate.  Furthermore, the paper uses Monte Carlo simulation to determine the optimal ratio between value and cost which suggests that the investment should be deferred or invested now. The result shows that, in general, a real estate project should be invested when the value of the project doubles the cost. Also, the result from the simulation allows investors to adjust the ratio according to their risk behavior. Lastly, the thesis performs another Monte Carlo simulation in order to quantitatively identify the effect of the real option model on the investment decision. The result shows that using only the traditional NPV to evaluate the investment can lead to the wrong investment decision more than 90% of the time. Therefore, using both real options and NPV together can improve investment decisions on the real estate development project.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka om nudging kan påverka individers ekonomiska riskbenägenhet och om effekten av nudging som beteendeförändrings teknik skiljer sig beroende på upplevd ekonomisk knapphet under livsloppet. Studien har utgått från en kvantitativ metodologi och design. Metoden innehåller ett standardiserat frågeformulär med ett väl beprövat instrument som mäter ekonomisk knapphet och ett pre-experiment för att kunna mäta deltagarnas riskbenägenhet. Urvalet bestod av ett studenturval (N= 304) och studien utfördes på studenter vid Högskolan i Skövde. Nudging är ett verktyg som kan användas för att ge människor möjlighet att kunna fatta mer medvetna beslut och därmed undvika ett automatisk tänkande. Tidigare forskning visar att människor ofta har svårt att ta rationella beslut när de ställs inför komplexa val. I sådana situationer tenderar människor att använda sig av ett heuristiskt tänkande och därmed appliceras ett automatiskt tankesätt. Individer som upplever eller har upplevt ekonomisk knapphet har svårare att ta långsiktiga ekonomisk beslut. Forskningar har visat att en uppväxt under låga socioekonomiska förhållanden kan leda till systematiska skillnader i beslutfattande. Vilket kan resultera i att dessa individer gör mer riskbenägna och impulsiva val. Forskarna ville undersöka om effekten av nudging som beteendesförändringsteknik kan påverka riskbenägenhet. Studiens resultat visade att upplevd ekonomisk knapphet under livsloppet inte hade någon större effekt på deltagarnas ekonomiska riskbenägenhet. Det fanns en tendens som visade att effekterna av nudging som beteendeförändringsteknik skiljer sig beroende på upplevd ekonomisk knapphet under livsloppet, dock var resultatet ej statistisk signifikant. / The purpose of this study was to investigate whether nudging can impact individuals'economic risk taking and whether the effect of nudging as a behaviour change technique differs dependingon perceived scarcity during the life cycle.The study has been based on a quantitative methodology and design. The method contains a standardized questionnaire with an established instrument that measures scarcity and a pre-experiment to be able to measure the participants' risk taking. The sample consisted of a student sample (N= 304) and the study was performed on students at the University of Skövde. Nudging is a tool that can be used to give people the opportunity to make more conscious decisions and thereby avoid automatic thinking. Previous research shows that people often find it difficult to make rational decisions when faced with complex choices. In such situations, people tend to use heuristic thinking and thereby an automatic way of thinking is applied. Individuals who experience or have experienced scarcity find it more difficult to make long-term economic decisions. Research has shown that growing up in low socio-economic conditions can lead to systematic differences in decision-making, which can result in these individuals making more risky or impulsive choices.The researchers wanted to investigate whether the effect of nudging as a behaviour change technique can affect risk taking. The results of the study showed that perceived scarcity during the life cycle had no major effecton the participants' economic risk taking. There was a tendency that showed that the effects of nudging as a behaviour change technique differs depending on perceived scarcity during the life cycle, however, the result was not statistically significant.

Alla företag har – från tid till annan – någon form av investeringar i sin verksamhet. För att utvärdera olika investeringsalternativ används investeringskalkyleringar, men de bakomlig-gande antaganden som görs vid dessa kalkyler är präglade av osäkerhet då ingen kan sia om framtidens utfall. Ett verktyg som kan användas för att hantera denna osäkerhet är känslighets-analys. Det finns många studier gjorda om känslighetsanalyser, men nästan alla följer en rationell an-sats och tar sällan hänsyn till den begränsade rationella människan som står bakom analyserna. Syftet med denna studie är att analysera hur företag använder sig av känslighetsanalys i sam-band med investeringsbeslut, oavsett om de förhåller sig till den rationella ansatsen eller inte. Studien har därför genomförts med intervjuer för att kunna uppnå detta syfte. Studien visar på att det finns viktiga faktorer som gör att känslighetsanalysens roll och använ-dande inför investeringsbeslut skiljer sig åt i de intervjuer vi gjort. Faktorerna som denna studie har tagit hänsyn till är hur ägarstrukturen ser ut, vilka typer av investeringar som görs och organisationens tolkningsprocess av omgivningen. Genom vår analysmodell hoppas vi kunna visa på varför behovet och utförandet av känslighetsanalysen ser ut som det gör, men även ge en förståelse för varför den skiljer sig åt mellan olika företag. / All companies have some form of investment in their business. To evaluate different invest-ment options, they will use some form of capital budgeting techniques. However, the underly-ing assumptions made in these calculations are characterized by uncertainty, as no one can predict the outcome of the future. One tool that can be used to deal with this uncertainty is sensitivity analysis. There have been many studies done on the subject of sensitivity analysis. But almost all of them follow a rational approach and rarely consider the limited rational person behind these analyses. The purpose of this study is to analyse how companies use sensitivity analysis for investment decisions, regardless of whether they relate to the rational approach or not. This study was therefore conducted with interviews to be able to achieve this purpose. This study shows that there are important factors that change the sensitivity analysis purpose and how it is used for investments decisions in the interviews that we have done. The factors this study will take into account are company structures, types of investments and how organ-izations manage their interpretation process of their environment. Through our analysis model we hope to show why the need and implementation of sensitivity analysis looks the way it does and provide an understanding of why it differs between companies.

The subject of the thesis is the financial and economic analysis of the investment project. In the theoretical part, I focus on the life cycle of a project, feasibility study, project financing and economic analysis of private investment projects, as well as methods applicable for evaluation of economic efficiency. The benefits of the practical part will specifically identify funding options for the draft in question, to assess the economic efficiency and to offer specific investment recommendation.

No description available.

Sustainable investing has seen a significant increase in the past years and is continuing to gain momentum with the constant rise of awareness and concern of the climate crisis. It is necessary for modern mutual fund companies to conduct ESG assessments as it provides a comprehensive understanding of a firm's sustainability performance, and identifies potential risks and opportunities which lay ground for investment decisions. However, there are still issues with fully aligning financial flows with sustainability goals. This study explores current issues regarding ESG assessment in investment decisions by mapping and examining Swedish fund companies. Furthermore, these issues will be explored if they are consistent with previous research. This study contributes to the literature by giving a comprehensive overview of issues regarding ESG assessments that are well-grounded in a real, sustainability-mature market, and will hopefully help investors and other stakeholders to get a deeper understanding of the issues, challenges and limitations associated with ESG assessment. By doing a case study of the Swedish fund market that tests factors derived from international literature, it was found that there are numerous issues in the process of conducting an ESG assessment in investment decisions. Firstly, there were issues regarding the collection of data that the fund companies use in order to conduct an ESG assessment. There is a lack of available, reliable and accessible data for fund companies to use directly and for the ESG rating agencies to use to rate companies. It is somewhat paradoxical as the fund companies feel strongly about developing their own methods for ESG assessment as they expressed hesitancy in using data from ESG rating agencies due to concerns about accuracy and comparability. By having individual methods, the fund companies gain control over the investment objectives and strategies, and hence, may avoid reputational damage. ESG rating agencies were generally discussed in the literature, as there was clear evidence of divergence between rating agencies and poor coverage of firms, which were also echoed by the fund companies. However, the companies still use ESG rating agency’s services as a support in their own ESG methods. Furthermore, regulations and legislation were an important finding in this study as fund companies perceived it to be developing in the right direction. However, the fund companies experienced being squeezed where they have demands and requirements, but no useful tools or material to achieve and satisfy them effectively. There are too many directives, actors, and initiatives for smaller fund companies to comply with, which causes frustration, misunderstandings and fuzziness among all actors on the financial market. Therefore, industry organizations such as the Swedish Investment Fund Association (SIFA) have a great responsibility to act as legal advisors and facilitate this transition. Lastly, it is ambiguous whether a standardized ESG assessment is desirable and/or even feasible in practice. While uniform regulations are required, there is also a major value in the freedom of interpretation in order to maintain the competitive advantage of having individual assessment methods. Succeeding in identifying material factors and standardizing the definition of sustainable investmentsis a challenge. Better integration between ESG and financial materiality will be required to create attractive longterm value in the future. / Hållbara investeringar har ökat avsevärt de senaste åren och fortsätter att öka i takt med att medvetenheten och oron i samhället för klimatkrisen växer. Det är nödvändigt för fondbolag att genomföra ESG-bedömningar för att få förståelse för ett bolags hållbarhetsprestanda samt identifiera potentiella risker och möjligheter vid investeringsbeslut. Det finns fortfarande utmaningar med att säkerställa att de finansiella flödena går i linje med hållbarhetsmålen. Denna studie undersöker och utforskar vilka utmaningar som finns med ESG-bedömningar vid investeringsbeslut, genom att kartlägga och granska svenska fondbolag. Dessutom kommer de identifierade utmaningarna att sättas i relation till tidigare forskning. Denna studie ämnar att bidra till litteraturen genom att ge en omfattande översikt över huvudsakliga utmaningar som finns vid genomförandet av ESG-bedömningar, som är väl förankrat i en verklig och mogen fondmarknad. Detta kommer hjälpa investerare och andra intressenter att få en djupare förståelse för utmaningarna, problemen och begränsningarna som finns förenat med ESG-bedömningar. Genom att göra en fallstudie av den svenska fondmarknaden med utgångspunkt i att testa faktorer härledda från internationell litteratur, identifierades ett flertal utmaningar med att utföra en ESG-bedömning vid investeringsbeslut. För det första fanns det svårigheter med inhämtningen av den data som börsbolag publicerar. Det råder brist på tillgänglig och pålitlig rådata som fondbolagen använder i sina egna ESG bedömningar samt för ESG ratinginstitut att använda som underlag vid betygsättning. Det blir något paradoxalt när fondbolag känner att det är väsentligt att utveckla egna metoder och modeller för ESG-bedömningar eftersom de anser att ratinginstituten erhåller tveksam data vilket ger upphov till frågor om tillförlitlighet och jämförbarhet. Vid utvecklandet av egna metoder tar de kontrollen genom att definiera sina egna hållbarhetsmål och strategier därefter, och kan därmed undvika potentiellt skadat rykte. Ratinginstitut visade även på osäkerheter såsom skiljaktigheter instituten emellan och dålig täckning på bolag (storleksmässigt), vilket nämndes både i litteratur och intervjustudien. Dock används ratinginstitutens tjänster ändå av fondbolag som en stöttepelare i deras egna metoder. I studien framgår det tydligt att utvecklingen av regelverk och lagstiftning går åt rätt håll, men samtidigt upplevs fondbolagen pressade av de nya överväldigande kraven i brist på resurser och verktyg för att lyckas hantera dem effektivt. De mindre fondbolagen upplever en frustration över den stora mängden direktiv, ramverk och aktörer som måste tas i beaktning vid ESG-bedömningar. Det lägger ett stort ansvar på branschorganisationer, däribland Fondbolagens Förening (SIFA), i rollen som juridiska rådgivare för att underlätta omställningen på fondmarknaden. Slutligen är standardisering ett omdiskuterat begrepp i studien, där det finns delade åsikter om huruvida en standardiserad ESG-bedömning är önskvärd och genomförbar i praktiken. Samtidigt som det finns ett behov av enhetliga regelverk och jämförbarhet finns det också ett värde i flexibiliteten i de egna bedömningsmetoderna för att skapa en konkurrensfördel. Att lyckas identifiera materiella faktorer och etablera en standardiserad definition av en hållbar investering är en genomgående utmaning på fondmarknaden. Bättre integration mellan ESG-faktorer och finansiell materialitet kommer att krävas för att möjliggöra ett långsiktigtvärdeskapande i framtiden.