BenQ was founded in1984,the business income was NTD 300 million during the initial period of years and her core business was merely to produce computer components. Her sales income has achieved to NTD 174.7 billion till 2004 after merging her subsidiary companies. Over the past 20 years, the employees increased to more than 13,000 as a global enterprise distributing more than 30 countries. In addition, the sales income has increased 582 times than she was founded. Therefore, the way of BenQ success was a model for the enterprise growth. In order to research the model and the experiences that the enterprise grows, this research uses BenQ as case study thoroughly studies in her nearly more than 20 years growth processes and how she used each strategy activity to achieve the enterprise growth goal. According to BenQ¡¦s success of new business development, this research constructs set of universalized new business development model, the flow, the process, and product life cycle backward vertical integration model. It was discovered that the corporate venture capital played an important role and function to provide the enterprises growth strategy when enterprise is growing.

The literatures on venture financing mainly focus on proposing resolutions of entrepreneurial moral hazard. However, those researches ignore the fact that venture capital firms might behave opportunistically as well. Hence, this paper offers an effective mechanism to resolve the double moral hazard raised between venture capital firms and entrepreneurs. Three main conclusions are drawn as follow: It is shown that although convertible preferred stock could prevent venture capital firms from opportunistic behavior, it has poor efficiency in dealing with entrepreneurial moral hazard. On the other hand, staged financing, as opposed to convertible preferred stock, could effectively mitigate entrepreneurial moral hazard, but hardly avert from moral hazard raised from venture capital firms. In its conclusion, this study illustrates that both convertible preferred stock and staged financing act as an effective complementary mechanism for each other. Compared with any single approach, this joint mechanism could relatively resolve a certain extent of double moral hazard.

<p>Introduction:</p><p>Venture capital investment process is complex and different firms vary greatly in their investment practices. This has resulted in authors given several different factors that could be imperative for venture firms investment decisions. There is thus no consensus in the field of venture investing.</p><p>Purpose:</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to list which factors are important for venture capital firms investment decisions in start-up firms.</p><p>Method:</p><p>The authors conducted structured phone interviews with seven venture capital firms in Sweden.</p><p>Conclusion:</p><p>The authors found the following factors to be important for venture firms investment decisions in start-up firms; Busienss plans that demonstrated the thinkings of the entrepreneur, communicate ideas, visions, product, market, competition, growth potential as well as the planned intentions with the recived funds. They also desired realistic, concreate, simple plans that explained the implementation process of the start-up firm. The second factor that was important was markets where large markets, market growth, market share, market entry and global markets were mentioned. The third factor of importance was product, in which uniqueness, simplicity, patents and time-to-market were listed. Management was the fourth factor of importance, in which sensibility, competence, technical skills, entrepreurial spirit, attitude, humbelness, determination, openness, drive, chemistry and confidence were included. The fifth factor of importamce financial embraced ROI, economioes of scale, valuation and the size of the investment. The last two important factors that the authors found to be important for the venture firms in the study were location and industry.</p>

<p>Venture capital investments have become a major contributor the growth of start-up firms. Investing in start-up firms carries a substantial risk of failure, only a minority of start-ups is high-return investments. This put great responsibility to the valuation methods used by the venture capital firm. It is argued that when uncertainties about future pay-offs are high traditional valuation tools are of little help, they are said to be too static and not to comply with change. A valuation method that is alleged to act in accordance with a changing environment where uncertainty is high is real option which is said to consider these variables, thus giving a more accurate valuation. The structure of venture capital funding can be seen as well suited for real option valuation.</p><p>The authors find it interesting to find out how venture capitalists screen possible investments, if the traditional valuation methods hold in proportion to the challenges they face and if the real option approach could be suitable.</p><p>The purpose is to describe and analyze how Swedish venture capital firms can valuate investments.</p><p>The research was carried out using a qualitative method. We conducted interviews with four venture capital firms that operate in Sweden. The participating firms were: Industrifonden, Itact, FöretagsByggarna and LinkMed.</p><p>The authors found in their research that the most important factors when screening the possible investments are the market and the entrepreneur. The venture capital firms use of valuation methods differ significantly. LinkMed and Industrifonden apply traditional valuation tools in contrast to Itact and FöretagsByggarna that rely on personal experience and expertise. Limitations found in the traditional models were lack of accurate and reliable estimations. The structural outlay of the investment is in line with that of the real option approach and the authors believes that real options exist embedded in the respondent’s investments. This implies that a real option approach is suitable for them.</p>

Unternehmensgründungen sind durch ein hohes Maß an Unsicherheit und durch eine häufige Notwendigkeit externer Beratung gekennzeichnet. Daher ist Smart Capital, als eine spezielle Finanzierungsform, die Kapital und Informationsflüsse in Form von Betreuung und Beratung verbindet, von besonderer Bedeutung für junge Unternehmen. Der empirische Teil der Dissertation analysiert die verschiedenen Typen von Finanziers, die als potentielle Anbieter von Smart Capital angesehen werden sowie regionale Einflüsse auf Finanzierungsbeziehungen im Rahmen von Smart Capital. Des Weiteren wird die Rolle der öffentlichen Hand auf dem Markt für Smart Capital untersucht. Die Analysen machen deutlich, dass viele verschiedene Typen von Finanziers als Anbieter von Smart Capital in Deutschland agieren. Regionale Nähe zwischen dem Investor und den finanzierten Unternehmen spielt dabei jedoch nur eine untergeordnete Rolle. Eine regionale Unterversorgung an Smart Capital für junge Unternehmen ist unter diesem Aspekt nicht zu befürchten. Des Weiteren zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass öffentlich geförderte Anbieter von Smart Capital ihre Förderfunktion im Wesentlichen erfüllen.

In order to boost the exit value, it is not uncommon that issuers report earnings in excess of cash flow generated by its operations at the initial public offering (IPO). The discretionary activity of performing earnings management can mislead investors about the intrinsic value of the newly public firm. Within this study, I examine how earnings management will affect the stock market reaction upon the lockup expiration date, the IPO adjustable offering size, and how the backing of private equity or venture capital (PEVC) affects earnings management tendencies within IPO firms. Using a unique, hand-collected dataset of 56 Swedish newly public firms from 2007 - 2014, I show that IPO firms (i) manage their earnings at the full fiscal year prior to the IPO and that earnings management will result in a negative stock market reaction upon the lockup expiration date. More importantly, I show that (ii) high adjustable offerings do not affect this relationship indicating that earnings management has no impact on the adjustable part of the offering size within IPOs. I also find that (iii) IPO firms backed by PEVC firms are more eager to manipulate their earnings, and (iv) highly reputable PEVC firms do not mitigate the manipulation of earnings within IPO firms. The results taken together suggest that studying the stock market reaction on the lockup expiration date is important for manipulative IPO firm detection, and that a participation in IPOs backed by PEVC firms must be done with caution.

In this dissertation, I explore the ability of financial institutions to impact firm behavior. The first essay examines whether relationships between venture capital owners (VCs) and investment banking underwriters affect a firm’s ability to issue equity. I find that past interactions between VC owners and underwriters in the form of previously underwritten initial public offerings (IPOs) significantly increase the likelihood that an IPO firm chooses a specific underwriter. In terms of how VCs and underwriters associate with each other, older VCs partner with more reputable underwriters. Despite paying higher fees, issuing firms benefit from stronger VC-Underwriter relationships through upward offer price revisions and higher valuations. VC-Underwriter relationships also predict underwriter choice in subsequent equity offerings. This essay provides empirical evidence that suggests VCs use their relationships with investment banks to enable their portfolio firms access to high quality underwriters and better underwriting services. The second essay investigates whether credit rating concerns affect capital investment decisions. Using ex-ante measures of proximity to a rating change, I find that firms that are near a credit rating downgrade spend significantly less on capital expenditures relative to those not near a rating change. The response of firms to credit rating upgrades is not symmetric: firms do not seem to adopt significantly different investment policies when near an upgrade. This effect of lowering investment when near a credit downgrade is stronger for firms that face financial constraints, experience greater adverse selection and are more active in debt markets. Related to reductions in investment, firms near rating changes also spend less on research and development expenses and pay lower dividends. My findings are consistent with firms conserving financial resources to prevent adverse credit rating changes that could increase their cost of capital. / text

published_or_final_version / Law / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The thesis investigates the link between internal and external funds in financing new investment when asymmetric information is important. In both chapter, the entrepreneur has private information about the value of a project and, if the quality of the project is high, she tries to signal this to outside investors. The first chapter explores the tradeoff between using internal funds and raising external funds by issuing shares or bonds to finance a project. The entrepreneur can delay the project to accumulate internal funds over time from existing operations. This allows an entrepreneur with a high quality project to reduce her reliance on expensive underpriced bond or share issues. However, accumulating funds is also costly because of discounting and the risk that the project disappears. The more valuable the good project, the less the entrepreneur will delay the project, risking its loss, and so the more she relies on external financing. When external financing is sought, the entrepreneur decides to issue bonds or shares. The greater the value of the good project, the more underpriced shares are relative to bonds. Thus an entrepreneur with a highly valuable good project chooses equity and one with a less valuable project chooses debt. Combining the two results shows that for a highly valuable good project, debt is used, and for a less valuable project, internal funds are used. External equity gets squeezed out. Aggregate data for the U.S. confirm that corporate bond issues are a more important source of funds than new share issued. Furthermore, most small firms rely on internal funds and debt, rather than external equity to finance their projects. The second chapter provides a new theory for the underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs). As in the first chapter, underpricing is used as a signal of quality. However, the entrepreneur is risk averse and only underprices when she cannot sell enough primary (new) shares to raise sufficient proceeds from the IPO to cover the cost of the project without diluting her position below that needed to signal a high project value. Underpricing allows the entrepreneur to maintain a high stake in the firm and still make a credible signal of quality. This allows more primary shares to be sold resulting in a net increase in proceeds. The model predicts that underpricing should be greatest among firms that don't sell secondary shares (shares held by insiders) at the IPO and that there should be a positive relationship between the firm's capital requirement and the initial return among this group of firms only. A switching regression framework is used. The probit model is first estimated where the probability of no secondary shares is explained by proxies for a firm's capital requirements. The initial return is then regressed on the same proxies, conditioning on whether the firm sells secondary shares or not and accounting for possible correlation between errors in the selection and regression equations. Strong support is found for the positive relationship between initial return and capital requirements for only firms without secondary share sales, as predicted.

För att skapa fler jobbtillfällen och driva på BNP-tillväxten i Sverige krävs det att små och medelstora företag får möjligheten att utvecklas och växa. För att klara det krävs det mer kapital från venture capital-marknaden, som är den viktigaste källan av finansiering för ett nystartat företag. Det har dock varit tuffa år för venture capital-bolagen sedan finanskrisen slog till. Den problemformulering som legat till grund för studien var följande: Hur har finanskrisen och den pågående eurokrisen påverkat venture capital-bolagens investeringsprocess? Studien syftade till att undersöka hur finanskrisen och den pågående skuldkrisen i Europa påverkat de svenska venture capital-bolagen och dess marknad. Vidare syftade studien till att redogöra för vilka delar inom investeringsprocessen som förändrats av de senaste åren av kriser. Hur venture capital-bolagen upplever samt arbetar med de problem som kan uppstå mellan dem och portföljbolagen gällande agentproblemen och informationsasymmetrin har även det undersökts. Vi använde oss av en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ undersökning för att genomföra vår studie. Till den kvalitativa undersökningen har vi intervjuat 10 personer som vid tidpunkten för undersökningen hade höga positioner inom vardera venture capital-bolag. Datamaterialet till den kvantitativa undersökningen baserades på SVCAs kvartals-, halvårs- och årsrapporter. Studien har i huvudsak baserats på teorier gjorda i andra länder på grund av bristfällig forskning i Sverige. De områden som avhandlats är inom riskkapital, agentteori, informationsasymmetri, investeringsprocessen samt yttre faktorers påverkan på venture capital. Studiens slutsatser var att förändringar skett inom venture capital-marknaden på grund av finans- och eurokrisen. Antalet investeringar och det investerade kapitalet hade minskat. Dessutom visade vår undersökning att den enda delen i investeringsprocessen som påverkats av kriserna är när venture capital-bolagen ska avyttra sina innehav. Vi fann även att agentproblemet och informationsasymmetrin existerar samt att alla respondenter använder sig av syndikering.