<p>We have examined the stock development of acquired listed Swedish companies - from the years 1995 to 2005 - upon the official publication of the bid. Thereafter we further investigated if there is a difference in the stock development between companies that are acquired by foreign investorscompared to Swedish investors. Also, a difference in the stock development could be due to the acquired firms’ industry classification and its company size, which we have been looking at.</p><p>In order to study the bid news impact on the share price, a quantitative study in the form of an event study has been done, where the abnormal return associated with the news has been measured.</p><p>The research shows that there indeed is a difference between companies acquired by foreign investors versus Swedish. As for industry classification, we find one out of six different industries standing out. The comparisons within the remaining industries shows similar results to the comparison of Swedish and foreign companies we mentioned before. In terms of company size,larger companies have shown a lower cumulative abnormal return compared to smaller companies. Furthermore the research also shows that larger the acquired companies are smaller the difference is in the cumulative abnormal return.</p> / <p>Vi har undersökt aktieutvecklingen hos uppköpta börsnoterade svenska företag, mellan 1995 till 2005, vid offentliggörandet av budet. Därefter undersöker vi även om det finns en skillnad i aktieutvecklingen mellan företag som blir uppköpta av utländska aktörer jämfört med de som blir uppköpta av svenska. Vidare skulle en visad skillnad i aktieutvecklingen kunna bero på de uppköpta företagens branschtillhörighet respektive företagens storlek, vilket vi har tittar närmare på.För att studera budnyhetens inverkan på börskursen har en kvantitativ undersökning i form av en event studie gjorts, där den abnormala avkastningen i samband med budnyheten mätts.Resultatet visar att det finns en skillnad mellan företag som blivit uppköpta av utländska aktörer och svenska. Vad gäller branschindelningen finner vi en bransch som utmärker sig gentemot de andra. Resterande branscher sammanfaller med jämförelsen av svenska och utländska företag. Storleksmässigt visade större företag allmänt en lägre kumulativ avkastning än mindre. Vidare är skillnaden mindre, mellan företag köpta av svenska aktörer och utländska, ju större företagen är.</p>

<p>Question:</p><p>"Does the market possess perfect information as the efficient market hypothesis says?"</p><p>"Is there any significant relationship between the abnormal stock return on the ex – day and the dividend?" Purpose: The purpose of this study is to enlighten and find understanding about stock return versus dividend on the ex – day and try to figure out if abnormal returns occur on the portfolio during dividends.</p><p>Methodology:</p><p>The study was based in a quantitative nature and was derived with an event study and a hypothesis testing. The authors investigated the thirty most traded shares on the Stockholm stock exchange during a period of five years (2005 – 2009). They were analyzed during a total of nine days; the estimation window was set to sixty days. Theory: Leading theories in this field of study have been picked to enlighten and analysis the questions of the study. Theories used: Efficient market hypothesis, agent theory and the events of dividends.</p><p>Empiricism / Results:</p><p>The authors made an event study and hypothesis tested the information. From the data they could see a small abnormal return on every day except the day after the ex – day. However, they could not prove a significant relationship between the stocks return and the dividend.</p><p>Conclusion / Discussion:</p><p>The efficient market hypothesis was strengthened in the conclusion where all new information is reflected in the stock price because the null hypothesis was accepted in all nine cases. The authors also concluded that although they have a differentiated result compared to other studies, it could be a result of the recession. Another conclusion was that the relationship between shareholders and the management has been improved because of a better spread of information.  </p>

Question: "Does the market possess perfect information as the efficient market hypothesis says?" "Is there any significant relationship between the abnormal stock return on the ex – day and the dividend?" Purpose: The purpose of this study is to enlighten and find understanding about stock return versus dividend on the ex – day and try to figure out if abnormal returns occur on the portfolio during dividends. Methodology: The study was based in a quantitative nature and was derived with an event study and a hypothesis testing. The authors investigated the thirty most traded shares on the Stockholm stock exchange during a period of five years (2005 – 2009). They were analyzed during a total of nine days; the estimation window was set to sixty days. Theory: Leading theories in this field of study have been picked to enlighten and analysis the questions of the study. Theories used: Efficient market hypothesis, agent theory and the events of dividends. Empiricism / Results: The authors made an event study and hypothesis tested the information. From the data they could see a small abnormal return on every day except the day after the ex – day. However, they could not prove a significant relationship between the stocks return and the dividend. Conclusion / Discussion: The efficient market hypothesis was strengthened in the conclusion where all new information is reflected in the stock price because the null hypothesis was accepted in all nine cases. The authors also concluded that although they have a differentiated result compared to other studies, it could be a result of the recession. Another conclusion was that the relationship between shareholders and the management has been improved because of a better spread of information.

We have examined the stock development of acquired listed Swedish companies - from the years 1995 to 2005 - upon the official publication of the bid. Thereafter we further investigated if there is a difference in the stock development between companies that are acquired by foreign investorscompared to Swedish investors. Also, a difference in the stock development could be due to the acquired firms’ industry classification and its company size, which we have been looking at. In order to study the bid news impact on the share price, a quantitative study in the form of an event study has been done, where the abnormal return associated with the news has been measured. The research shows that there indeed is a difference between companies acquired by foreign investors versus Swedish. As for industry classification, we find one out of six different industries standing out. The comparisons within the remaining industries shows similar results to the comparison of Swedish and foreign companies we mentioned before. In terms of company size,larger companies have shown a lower cumulative abnormal return compared to smaller companies. Furthermore the research also shows that larger the acquired companies are smaller the difference is in the cumulative abnormal return. / Vi har undersökt aktieutvecklingen hos uppköpta börsnoterade svenska företag, mellan 1995 till 2005, vid offentliggörandet av budet. Därefter undersöker vi även om det finns en skillnad i aktieutvecklingen mellan företag som blir uppköpta av utländska aktörer jämfört med de som blir uppköpta av svenska. Vidare skulle en visad skillnad i aktieutvecklingen kunna bero på de uppköpta företagens branschtillhörighet respektive företagens storlek, vilket vi har tittar närmare på.För att studera budnyhetens inverkan på börskursen har en kvantitativ undersökning i form av en event studie gjorts, där den abnormala avkastningen i samband med budnyheten mätts.Resultatet visar att det finns en skillnad mellan företag som blivit uppköpta av utländska aktörer och svenska. Vad gäller branschindelningen finner vi en bransch som utmärker sig gentemot de andra. Resterande branscher sammanfaller med jämförelsen av svenska och utländska företag. Storleksmässigt visade större företag allmänt en lägre kumulativ avkastning än mindre. Vidare är skillnaden mindre, mellan företag köpta av svenska aktörer och utländska, ju större företagen är.

En eventstudie gjordes på aktierekommendationer publicerade på Privata Affärers hemsida mellan 2009-2010. Publiceringsdagen för rekommendationen utgjorde eventdagen och ett eventfönster på fem dagar innan och fem dagar efter. Rekommendationerna delades upp i olika kategorier för att kunna se skillnader mellan köp, avvakta och säljrekommendationer samt för Mid Cap och Small Cap. Uppsatsen kunde inte påvisa någon generell statistisk signifikant överavkastning i någon av de undersökta kategorierna.

This paper is a study on how U.S stock market reacts on sovereign credit rating announcements, and if there is a significant difference between low or high debt firms. We have used an event study based on historical stock prices from 30 companies, 15 with high debt and 15 with low debt. All companies are taken from the S&amp;P`s 500 index which we also use as a market index. We use a regression model with 10 % significance level to see if there is a significant impact on high debt firms. Our result shows that the market will be affected by the downgrade. We also conclude that there was a significant negative impact on the high debt firms.

Bakgrund: Läkemedelsbranschen är idag en av de mest reglerade branscherna på marknaden. Forskning och utveckling har en stor betydelse för läkemedelsföretagen. För att lansera ett läkemedel krävs det att företagen genomför kliniska prövningar, deras utfall kan mycket väl avgöra företagens framtid. Problemformulering: hur stor inverkan har de olika faserna inom produktutvecklingen på aktiekurserna för företag i läkemedelsbranschen. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur marknaden reagerar när läkemedel som är under utveckling går in i de tre olika kliniska faserna.Metod: Studien baseras på kvantitativ data där ett bekvämlighetsval gjorts på sju stycken läkemedelsföretag. PR meddelanden där läkemedel i utveckling går in i fas-1, fas-2 och fas-3 kliniska prövningar har valts ut som enskilda händelsen i eventstudien som genomförts. Vi har studerat vad som händer 5 dagar före och 5 dagar efter att händelsen utspelar sig. Därefter har vi mätt marknadens reaktion genom beräkning av den anormala avkastningen. Slutsatser: Studien visar på att aktiemarknaden reagerar positivt på alla de tre kliniska faserna. Marknaden har en förmåga att övervärdera fas-1 studiers betydelse. Det finns tecken på att marknaden har svårt att värdera forskningen och utvecklingens riktiga värde. / Background: The pharmaceutical industry is a heavily regulated market. Costs for research and development are of utmost importance for the industry. To successfully launch a new drug requires clinical trials, and their outcomes could well determine the future of the company’s business. Problem formulation: how much influence do the various stages of product development have on the stock prices for companies in the pharmaceutical industry. Purpose: How does the market react when a drug under development undergoes the three different clinical phases. Method: The study is based on quantitative data. Seven pharmaceutical companies have been selected for this study. PR messages for when drugs in development go into phase-1, phase-2 and phase-3 clinical trials, have been selected as the event in focus for our study. We have studied what occurs five days before and five days after an event takes place. Next we measure the markets reaction by calculating the abnormal return. Conclusion: The study shows that the stock market reacts positively to all three clinical phases. The market has a way to overestimate phase-1 studies importance. There are signs that the market has difficulties evaluating R&amp;Ds real value.

Bakgrund: Tidigare studier faller väl i linje med den bakomliggande teorin, att det förvärvande företagets avkastning ska sjunka i samband med offentliggörandet av förvärv. Dock har detta samband ifrågasatts av studier genomförda på senare tid som inte kunnat visa på signifikanta samband och i vissa fall även påvisat positiva avkastningar. Utfallet tycks vara beroende av många variabler varpå konjunkturen, finansieringen av förvärvet och förvärvsstorleken varit återkommande i flertalet studier inom ämnet. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att analysera om och hur företagsförvärv påverkar aktiekursen för det förvärvande företaget vid offentliggörandet av förvärv på den svenska marknaden januari 2004 till december 2014, samt hur konjunkturläget, finansieringen och det förvärvade företagets relativa storlek påverkar avkastningen. Genomförande: För att uppnå syftet med uppsatsen genomförs empiriska studier. Analysen av förvärvs påverkan på aktiekurs är av typen eventstudie som utgår från historiska tidsserier över prisutvecklingen för det förvärvande bolagets aktie. Studien utgår från en deduktiv ansats. Resultat: Studien visar att tio dagar kring offentliggörandet av ett företagsförvärv sjunker det förvärvande företagets aktiekurs. Dagsvisa abnormala avkastningar uppvisade signifikant negativ avkastning, förutom dagen för offentliggörandet som inte visade på något statistiskt samband. Det positiva sambandet mellan de abnormala avkastningarna och konjunkturläget visar att det i lågkonjunktur uppstår positiv avkastning och att det i högkonjunktur uppstår negativ avkastning. Valet av finansieringsalternativ har signifikant påverkan då aktier används som finansieringsalternativ, vilket ger i en positiv utveckling av aktiekursen. Denna studies resultat visar även att det finns ett positivt samband mellan förvärvets relativa storlek och den kumulativa avkastningen. / Background: Previous studies falls well in line with the underlying theory that the acquiring company’s return will fall at the announcement of acquisition. However, this correlation is challenged by recently conducted studies that have not been able to show significant relationships between acquirers return and announcement of acquisition, and some studies have also demonstrated positive returns. The outcome appears to be dependent on many variables on which economic conditions, funding and target size have been recurrent in many studies within the subject. Aim: The study aims is to analyze if and how the announcement of acquisition affects the stock price of the acquiring company on the Swedish market from January 2004 to December 2014, and how the economic cycle, the funding and the acquired company’s relative size affects the said returns. Completion: In order to achieve the aim of the thesis empirical studies are concluded. The analysis of the acquisition’s impact on the share price is of the type of event study based on the historical time series of the price changes of the acquiring company’s stock. Results: This study shows that, during ten days around the announcement of an acquisition, the acquiring company’s stock price falls and produces negative returns. Daily abnormal returns shows significant negative returns, except for the date of announcement which showed no statistical relationship. The positive relationship between the abnormal returns and the economic condition in the country shows that positive returns occur in recession and negative returns occur in times of economic growth. The choice of funding has significant influence on the abnormal return when the acquirer’s shares are used as funding, providing an increase of the share price. The results also show that there is a positive correlation between the relative size of the acquired company and the acquirer’s return.

Studien avsåg studera Private Equity-ägda och icke Private Equity-ägda nynoteringars långsiktiga avkastning. Med hjälp av bakomliggande faktorer så som ägarstruktur, underprissättning, marknadsvärde, storlek på nynotering, ålder, bransch samt heta och kalla marknader, identifierades om det fanns skillnader och vad de i så fall kunde bero på. Vidare undersöktes om nynoteringarna var underprissatta och om underprissättningen i så fall skiljde sig mellan de två ägarstrukturerna. I denna studie tillämpades ett kvantitativt tillvägagångssätt med en deduktiv ansats för att analysera sekundärdatan som samlades in. Urvalet bestod av 43 bolag varav 25 var PE-ägda och 18 var icke PE-ägda. Sekundärdata samlades in från ett flertal olika källor däribland Nasdaq, Skatteverket, Zephyr och Finansinspektionen. PE-ägda nynoteringar presterade bättre än icke PE-ägda på lång sikt, både för Buy-and-hold abnormal return (BHAR) 1 och 3 år. Samtliga nynoteringar var i genomsnitt underprissatta där PE-ägda uppvisade en högre underprissättning. Utöver resultatet att samtliga nynoteringar i genomsnitt var underprissatta, vilket var signifikant på en 0,1 procentsnivå, var ingen av skillnaderna signifikant. Slutligen uppvisade underprissättning som enda variabel en signifikant positiv påverkan på både BHAR 1 och 3 år. För BHAR 1 år visade dessutom storleken på nynoteringen och en av de fyra åldersgrupperna tio-nitton, i jämförelse med referensgruppen, en positiv signifikant påverkan. / The aim of this study was to determine whether there were any differences in the long-run performance between Private-Equity-backed and non-Private-Equity-backed IPOs. Further, the authors chose a number of variables from previous studies in order to examine whether these could explain the long-run performance of IPOs on the Swedish stock market Stockholmsbörsen. Finally, the study examined whether the IPOs was underpriced and if it differed between the two ownership structures. In this study a quantitative method with a deductive approach was used in order to analyze the collected secondary data. The study's sample consisted of 43 companies, of which 25 were Private-Equity-backed and 18 were non-Private-Equity-backed. The secondary data were collected from a variety of sources such as Nasdaq, Skatteverket, Zephyr and Finansinspektionen. Private-Equity-backed IPOs performed better than non-Private-Equity-backed IPOs in the long-run, both for BHAR 1 and 3 years. Further, all the IPOs were on average underpriced, where Private-Equity-backed showed a higher underpricing. Aside from the fact that all the IPOs were underpriced, which was significant at a 0.1 percent level, none of the differences were significant. Finally, the only variable that showed a significant positive impact on both BHAR 1 and 3 years was underpricing. For BHAR 1 year the size of the IPO and one of the four age groups 10-19, in comparison with the reference group, also showed a positive significant impact.

Background: Mergers and acquisitions (M&amp;A’s) are common ways for businesses to expand, compete, and maintain in competitive business environments. A strongly debated question in literature is whether or not these M&amp;A’s provide measurable benefits, as factors such as industry, geographic location, and regulations play key roles in the impacts of the M&amp;A’s. In this paper, we investigate the short-term effects of M&amp;A’s based on stock returns of acquiring companies, with a focus on finance industries in the British Isles. Purpose: The purpose is to study whether or not there are significant short-term abnormal returns for acquiring companies when M&amp;As of financial services target enterprises take place. Further, the study examines factors which can affect the impact of M&amp;A’s, such as size of transaction, whether it is domestic or cross-border, whether or not the acquiring company is in a finance industry, and whether there is evidence of merger waves related to finance M&amp;A’s in the British Isles. Method: An event study methodology is applied and focused on calculating the cumulative abnormal returns, as well as verifying whether those are statistically significant. The study analyses 100 M&amp;A’s conducted on target companies from the UK and Ireland between the years 2000 and 2019. The event study is performed using the STATA statistical software, which is used to analyse the stock return performance in comparison to the domestic market index for each acquiring company. Conclusion: The study finds statistically insignificant results, concluding that M&amp;A events do not generate significant abnormal returns for acquiring companies. This is in line with majority of previous research done, showing that M&amp;A deals are not deemed significantly value creating nor value destroying. M&amp;A’s within finance industry where the acquiring companies were domestic, in a finance industry, where the deals were smaller, were all shown to have less negative, albeit still insignificant results. This study also presents evidence for merger waves. Moreover, this thesis adds a clear geographic and industry component which is often missing in previous research, showing that within finance industry in the British Isles the impacts of M&amp;A deals are unlikely to be statistically significant in causing abnormal returns.