L’activité de fusions et acquisitions (désormais F&A) a atteint un niveau record en 2017 et s’est élevée à plus de 2 993 milliards d’euros (Thomson Reuters, 2018). Cette dynamique sur le marché des F&A est toutefois dominée par une minorité d’acquéreurs qui entreprennent un très grand nombre de F&A (Kengelbach, Klemmer, Schwetzler et Sperling, 2012). Les importants changements environnementaux tels que la globalisation, l'intégration des économies émergentes et les progrès technologiques ont, en outre, suscité de nouvelles opportunités de croissance pour les firmes et ontfait émerger de véritables « serial acquéreurs » ; ces entreprises qui s’engagent dans des séries ou flux de F&A (Fuller, Netter et Stegemoller, 2002) afin de créer de la valeur et améliorer leur performance économique et financière (Laamanen et Keil, 2008). La mise en œuvre et la réussite de cette stratégie extrêmement complexe et risquée (Boubakri, Chan et Kooli, 2012) s’avèrent toutefois difficiles en pratique (Haleblian, Devers, McNamara, Carpenter et Davison, 2009). Plusieurs études montrent, ainsi, des résultats décevants ou une diminution de la performance des acquéreurs en série au fil de leurs opérations (Billett et Qian, 2008 ; Ismail, 2008 ; Fuller et al., 2002). Ce travail de recherche a dès lors été guidé par l’objectif d’identifier des nouveaux déterminants de la performance en s’intéressant aux fondements stratégiques de ceux-ci, qui permettent de piloter efficacement un programme de F&A, de gérer sa complexité et les risques qui y sont associés, et ainsi favoriser ultimement la performance des firmes.Les résultats de cette recherche ; menée à travers 3 essais ; soulignent l’importance des caractéristiques des programmes de F&A (le rythme, la place et le degré de diversification des F&A) et des motivations sous-jacentes aux opérations de désinvestissement (quand elles sont réalisées dans une optique de gestion de portefeuille dynamique) dans la performance financière des acquéreurs en série. De plus, la performance stratégique en matière de croissance, d’internationalisation et de diversification est permise par des séries de F&A qui s’accompagnent du développement de capacités d’acquisition et de la mise en place de mécanismes d’apprentissage organisationnel tels que la temporisation pour codifier et capitaliser les connaissances acquises, l’ajustement de la vitesse d’intégration à la nature de l’intégration poursuivie et la routinisation des processus d’acquisition par la mise en place d’un système d’information commun à l’ensemble du groupe. Ces acquéreurs en série constitueraient ainsi des acquéreurs « habituels », développant de véritables routines d’acquisition. Ces résultats suggèrent, en outre, qu’au-delà des acquéreurs en série, il existe desacquéreurs habituels en parallèle, véritables « maîtres de portefeuille » (Kengelbach, Keienburg, Schmid, Sievers et Mehring, 2016) qui acquièrent parfois en « grappes » ou qui, simultanément, acquièrent et désinvestissent pour gérer au mieux leur portefeuille d’actifs stratégiques. / Global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity has hit a record level in 2017 having reached more than 2,993 billion euros (Thomson Reuters, 2018). This dynamic was, however, due to a minority of acquirers who undertook a substantial number of M&A (Kengelbach, Klemmer, Schwetzler and Sperling, 2012). In addition, important environmental changes such as globalization, emerging economies integration and technological progress have created new opportunities for business growth and led to the emergence of "serial acquirers"; these companies engage in M&A series or M&A flows (Fuller, Netter and Stegemoller, 2002) to create value and improve their economic and financial performance (Laamanen and Keil, 2008). The implementation and success achievement of this extremely complex and risky strategy (Boubakri, Chan and Kooli, 2012) is, however, difficult to apply in practice (Haleblian, Devers, McNamara, Carpenter and Davison, 2009). For instance, numerous studies show disappointing results, e. g. a decrease in the performance of serial acquirers during their M&A operations (Billett and Qian, 2008; Ismail, 2008; Fuller, Netter and Stegemoller, 2002). This research work was aimed to identify new determinants of M&A performance by focusing on their strategic foundations permitting to effectively manage an M&A program, its complexity and associated risks, and, thus, ultimately stimulate the firms’ performance.The results of this research (realized by conducting 3 essays) underline the importance of the M&A programs’ characteristics (rhythm, geography and degree of diversification of M&A transactions) and the motivations underlying the divestment operations (undertaken with a view to the dynamic portfolio management) in the understanding of financial performance of serial acquirers. In addition, the strategic performance of the M&A series (e. g. growth, internationalization and diversification amplitude) is accompanied by the development of acquisition capacities and the implementation of organizational learning mechanisms such as codification of acquired knowledge, speed integration adjustment, etc.). These serial acquirers, thus, become “common” acquirers developing real acquisition routines. The results also suggest that, beyond the serial acquirers, there are common acquirers in parallel, true "portfolio masters" (Kengelbach, Keienburg, Schmid, Sievers and Mehring, 2016) who sometimes acquire in clusters or who, simultaneously, acquire and divest tobest manage their portfolio of strategic assets.

The dissertation titled "Protection of property rights in the decision-making practice of courts in the Czech Republic" gives a holistic view of the decisions of courts of general judicial system and the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic in matters relating to the conditions, manner, and limits of the property rights protection. The topic is understood as an interpretation of various institutes in which the courts' decisions claims the most, and as a summary of judgments reflecting every single institute. The dissertation captures the judicial decision-making practice, taking into account the state of the legislation in force until 31 December 2013. The empirical part of the dissertation which corresponds to the selected assignment is preceded by a necessary interpretation of theoretical, doctrinal and historical bases of the topic. The dissertation also reminds the in time-varying insight into the nature, meaning and object of property rights and on the level and ways of protection in the Roman law jurisprudence and civil codes that directly affected the courts application practice in the territory of the present-day Czech Republic. An interpretation of privatization and restitution process that took place in our society after 1989 is an important link between the theoretical and the...

Agency Costs of Controlling Minority Shareholders (coauthored with Henrik Cronqvist) estimates the agency costs of controlling minority shareholders (CMSs) using a panel of Swedish listed firms. CMSs are owners who have a control stake of the firm’s votes while owning only a minority fraction of the firm’s equity. The study documents that families in control are almost exclusively CMSs through an extensive use of dual-class shares. The results show that increased ownership of votes by a controlling owner is associated with an economically and statistically significant decrease in firm value, but that the decrease in firm value is significantly larger for firms with family CMSs than for firms with financial institutions or corporations in control. This indicates that the agency costs of family CMSs are larger than the agency costs of other controlling owners.Family Ownership, Control Considerations, and Corporate Financing Decisions: An Empirical Analysis analyzes the relation between concentrated family control and firms’ choice of capital structure for a panel of Swedish listed firms. The results suggest that the capital structure choices made by firms with families in control are influenced by the controlling families’ desire to protect their control, and that the resulting capital structures are likely to increase the agency costs of family control. The Choice between Rights Offerings and Private Equity Placements (coauthored with Henrik Cronqvist) analyzes the determinants of the choice between rights offerings and private equity placements using a sample of rights offerings and private placements made by listed Swedish firms. The results indicate that control considerations explain why firms make uninsured rights offerings. The evidence also suggest that private placements, and to some extent underwritten rights offerings, are made by potentially undervalued firms in order to overcome underinvestment problems resulting from asymmetric information about firm value. Furthermore, private placements are frequently made in conjunction with the establishment of a product market relationship between purchaser and seller, which is consistent with equity ownership reducing contracting costs in new product market relationships. Why Agency Costs Explain Diversification Discounts (coauthored with Henrik Cronqvist and Peter Högfeldt) studies diversification within the real estate industry, in which firms can diversify over property types and geographical regions. Similar to previous studies, this essay documents the existence of a diversification discount. However, the major cause of the diversification discount is not diversification per se but anticipated costs due to rent dissipation in future diversifying acquisitions. Firms expected to pursue non-focusing strategies do indeed diversify more, are valued ex ante at a 20% discount over firms anticipated to follow a focusing strategy, and are predominantly family controlled. The ex ante diversification discount is, therefore, a measure of agency costs.  The Difference in Acquirer Returns between Takeovers of Public Targets and Takeovers of Private Targets shows, for a sample of Swedish takeovers, that the average acquirer abnormal return is positive and significant when the target firm is privately held but insignificant when the target firm is listed on a stock exchange. These results are robust when controlling for sample selection problems and other variables capable of explaining acquirer returns. The evidence is consistent with greater acquirer bargaining power and resolution of information asymmetries in takeovers of private targets. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2002

International Financial Reporting Standard IFRS 3 Business Combinations settles the rules of identifying, measuring, accounting and reporting for the business combinations. It decides, what is, or is not, a business combination, and explains different types of it. It asks an acquirer to use the acquisition method for accounting for the business combination at the date of acquisition. Especially to correctly recognize all the assets and liabilities acquired in the business combinations, to measure them at their fair value at the date of acquisition, to measure goodwill, and to report the information on business combination required in his financial statements. This thesis deals with the most important aspects of the business combinations, especially mergers. It explains also the most significant differences of the standard IFRS 3 Business combinations compared to the previous vision, and to some national legal regulations, and mentions also the probable development of the international accounting in the future. An attention is given also to the cross-border acquisitions. In its practical part, the thesis focuses to evaluation of fulfilling the requirements to disclose information on business combination in practice.

Several studies have been conducted within machine learning, and various variations have been applied to a wide spectrum of other fields. However, a thorough feasibility study within the payment processing industry using machine learning classifier algorithms is yet to be explored. Here, we construct a rule-based response vector and use that in combination with a magnitude of varying feature vectors across different machine learning classifier algorithms to try and determine whether individual transactions can be considered profitable from a business point of view. These algorithms include Naive-Bayes, AdaBoosting, Stochastic Gradient Descent, K-Nearest Neighbors, Decision Trees and Random Forests, all helped us build a model with a high performance that acts as a robust confirmation of both the benefits and a theoretical guide on the implementation of machine learning algorithms in the payment processing industry. The results as such are a firm confirmation on the benefits of data intensive models, even in complex industries similar to Swedbank Pay’s. These Implications help further boost innovation and revenue as they offer a better understanding of the current pricing mechanisms. / Många studier har utförts inom ämnet maskininlärning, och olika variationer har applicerats på ett brett spektrum av andra ämnen. Däremot, så har en ordentlig genomförbarhetsstudie inom betalningsleveransindustrin med hjälp av klassificeringsalgortimer har ännu ej utforskats. Här har vi konstruerat en regelbaserad responsvektor och använt den, tillsammans med en rad olika och varierande egenskapvektorer på olika maskininlärningsklassificeringsalgoritmer för att försöka avgöra ifall individuella transaktioner är lönsamma utifrån företagets perspektiv. Dessa algoritmer är Naive-Bayes, AdaBoosting, Stokastisk gradient medåkning, K- Närmaste grannar, beslutsträd och slumpmässiga beslutsskogar. Alla dessa har hjälpt oss bygga en teoretisk vägledning om implementering av maskininlärningsalgoritmer inom betalningsleveransindustrin. Dessa resultat är en robust bekräftelse på fördelarna av dataintensiva modeller även inom sådana komplexa industrier Swedbank Pay är verksamma inom. Implikationerna hjälper vidare att förstärka innovationen och öka intäkterna eftersom de erbjuder en bättre förståelse för deras nuvarande prissättningsmekanism.