This study investigates the importance of reduced capital misallocation in explaining the gains in corporate spinoffs. The capital misallocation hypothesis asserts that the internal capital market of a diversified firm fails to meet the needs of the relatively low growth divisions for less investment and the needs of the relatively high growth divisions for more investment. Higher differences in growth opportunities imply that more capital is misallocated. This study finds that the higher the difference in growth opportunities of a diversified firm's businesses, the more likely the firm is to conduct a spinoff. This finding supports the argument that diversified firms conduct spinoffs to reduce capital misallocation. This study finds differences in managerial ownership of spinoff firms and of nonspinoff firms. This suggests that the misallocation of internal capital is an agency problem. A low management ownership stake, coupled with the existing differential in growth opportunities between parent and spunoff firms, leads to misallocation of internal capital, thus creating incentives for a spinoff. Spinoffs should result in a shift to the “right" investment policy and to better operating performance for both the parent and spunoff firms. This improvement in operating performance for the post-spinoff firms is expected to be higher when they are from highly different growth opportunity spinoffs. I find mixed evidence regarding market reaction, changes in investment policy, and changes in operating performance. The evidence that supports the capital misallocation hypothesis does not appear uniformly and consistently across the proxies for growth opportunities. However, there is evidence that both parent and spunoff firms benefit from a spinoff. The magnitude of the benefits is larger for spunoff firms than for parent firms. This is as expected because the capital misallocation problem may be reduced, but does not entirely disappear, in the parent firm.

Disclosure of accounting information is crucial in facilitating efficient contracts in the publicly listed firm and in reducing information asymmetries in capital markets. A well-known perception in disclosure literature is that, as the separation between managers and owners increases, so does the demand for publicly available disclosure. Many publicly listed firms around the world are controlled by a few large owners that obtain information through their insider positions in the firm. Thus, variations in ownership structures have a considerable effect on how firms’ disclosure practices are resolved. Despite the increased attention paid to the identity of controlling owners and their influence on financial reporting practices, little is known about how owner types and governance mechanisms influence corporate disclosures and capital-market effects. This thesis contributes to the disclosure literature by studying a context in which controlling owners have a large influence on the governance and disclosure practices of firms. This contrasts with the much-studied setting in which management influences the governance and reporting decisions of firms. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to examine the determinants and capital-market effects of Swedish listed firms’ annual report disclosure. This thesis uses a self-constructed disclosure index from manually gathered data from the annual reports of Swedish publicly listed firms during the years 2001 to 2013. This includes information on the notes to the financial statements, corporate governance and strategy. The findings of the four empirical studies show that the ownership structure of firms and the various contractual relationships that firms are engaged in, drive the disclosure practices. Additionally, the results indicate that higher levels of disclosure decrease information asymmetries between capital-market participants and increase trading activity. However, the findings also show that firms with controlling owners are less forthcoming with disclosure, even after a new disclosure reform. Considering the large influence of controlling owners in the studied context, these are important findings in the research field and in regulators’ processes of deriving disclosure regulation. The thesis concludes that the variety in firms’ disclosure incentives and local governance structures are important disclosure determinants to understand in framing international accounting standards.

Catastrophe theory (CT) is a relatively new mathematical theory that comprehensively describes a system exhibiting discontinuous behavior when subjected to continuous stimuli. This study tests the theory using capital-market data. The data is a time series of stock returns on firms that filed for Chapter 11 reorganization during 1980-1985. The CT model used is based on a corporate failure model suggested by Francis, Hastings and Fabozzi (1983). The model predicts 1) as the filing date approaches, there will be a structural shift in the underlying stock-return generating process of the filing firm, and 2) firms with lower operating risk will have a smaller jump than firms with higher operating risk, corresponding to their relative positions within the bifurcation set of the catastrophe cusp.

1 Abstract Legal issues of transactions with securities and financial derivatives The aim of this thesis is to analyse valid legal regulations concerning securities and financial derivatives, to compare it with regulations valid before recodification of Czech private law as well as to describe operation of the financial market, where transactions with securities and financial derivatives take place, through analysis of capital market regulation and supervision. The thesis is composed of three main chapters. Chapter One is focused on a definition of the financial market and its structure and further examines the capital market as a part of the financial market. Primary attention is concentrated on capital market regulation and supervision from the perspective of international, European and national law. Conclusion of this chapter deals with the main organizer of the regulated market in the Czech Republic, i.e Prague Stock Exchange. Chapter Two concerns the definitions of securities and their classification according to their forms and types. Shares, as one of the most important type of securities, are covered in more detail. This chapter also outlines issuance of securities and describes main contracts concerning securities. This part also includes a dedicated section on investment instruments embracing both...

The diploma thesis deals with the issues related to capital market regulation from a more complex point of view. The capital markets represent a significant part of market mechanisms in the developed market-economy countries. They act as a significant means of transfer as well as material artifacts re-allocation. Understanding of capital market in the quality of an interdisciplinary phenomenon is the point of departure. The individual approaches that we have chosen in order to grasp the subject of capital market regulation are the following: law, economics, ethics, and on a limited basis, psychology. The intention is to catch legal regulation (reactive) on the one hand - executed institutionally (provided by the authority of state), and on the other hand a form of regulation represented by the proactive self-regulation approach based on ethical values - the approach of psychology representing a transitional mechanism - with this all set in the context of economic reality and its specific approaches to regulation. The diploma thesis reflects the recent years developments - partly the financial crisis, then the financial market globalisation and internationalisation as well as the Czech Republic integration into European structures. The analytical and descriptive focus prevails in the diploma thesis....

Resume: The aim of my thesis is to define the area of investment banking and point out its specifics in terms of Czech life and institutions in carrying out securities transactions by way of analyzing relevant legislation, its doctrinal interpretation, supplemented by some practical conclusions drawn from relevant case law and opinions of regulatory bodies. The thesis is divided into three separate parts. The first part tries to grasp theoretical concepts used in the title of this work. The definition and nature of security is essential for its later usage in terms of operations which are performed with such securities by investment banks. Types of such operations are defined by various investment services which determine the extent of investment banks' scope of business. In addition to those investment services, the Czech regulatory environment also addresses the status of investment banks whose different models (in terms of their functioning) can lead to terminological questions of why some investment banks are not a bank in a legal sense. The above provides a basis for the second part of my thesis, which is concerned with an analysis of respective securities operations that are usually carried out by investment banks operating in the Czech Republic. These operations are linked together and are often...

Syfte: De immateriella tillgångarna är svårvärderade och diffusa tillgångar. Det har länge pågått en diskussion angående huruvida hantering av de immateriella tillgångarna påverkar värderelevansen och användbarheten av de finansiella rapporterna. Syftet med studien är att undersöka värderelevansen av de redovisade immateriella tillgångarna för kapitalmarknaden utifrån ett redovisningsperspektiv. Metod: Metoden grundas i Ohlson-modellen. Data från årsredovisningar har samlats in och sedan analyserats genom flera multipla regressioner och en korrelationsanalys.  Resultat & Slutsats:Resultatet av studien visar att det finns ett positivt signifikant samband mellan de totala immateriella tillgångarna och aktiepriset. Resultatet av denna studie visar således att de redovisade totala immateriella tillgångarna ger värderelevant information till kapitalmarknaden. Dock visar sig endast posterna FoU och patent vara värderelevanta för kapitalmarknaden när värderelevansen av de immateriella tillgångarna uppdelat i specifika poster undersöks. Förslag till fortsatt forskning:  Ett fåtal tidigare studier undersöker tillförlitligheten av de redovisade immateriella tillgångarna. Då tillförlitlighet precis som värderelevans är en av de fundamentala egenskaper redovisningsinformation bör besitta är det intressant att även undersöka hur tillförlitlig kapitalmarknaden anser att de redovisade immateriella tillgångarna är. Då tidigare forskning hävdar att det är svårt att mäta de immateriella tillgångarna på ett tillförlitligt sätt vore det relevant att undersöka om detta stämmer. Uppsatsens bidrag: Studien ger bevis för att de totala redovisade immateriella tillgångarna är värderelevanta. Det huvudsakliga praktiska bidraget med studien är att den kan ge intressenter en bättre förståelse för hur redovisningsinformation om de immateriella tillgångarna påverkar aktiepriset.

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, 2016 / Corporate bonds issued by the four major commercial banks in South Africa, which account for 61% of the market, and their respective earning announcements in the period 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2014 were used to analyse the reaction of daily corporate bond prices to the earnings announcements of South African companies. The reaction of the daily corporate bond prices to earnings announcements was empirically analysed using cross sectional regressions. We concluded that on average the South African corporate bond market incorporates any new information from earnings announcements. We also investigated if the asymmetrical payoff structure of corporate bonds causes daily prices to be more sensitive to bad earnings announcements than good earnings announcements. Our investigation found that daily corporate bond prices are insensitive to both bad and good earnings announcements. Lastly, we analysed if the lack of infrastructure and liquidity in the corporate bond market hinders corporate bonds in incorporating information relative to the stock market, which has better infrastructure and liquidity. We observed that both corporate bonds and stocks on average incorporate new information from earnings announcements, irrespective of illiquidity and the absence of adequate infrastructure in the South African corporate bond market, / DM2016

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Finance and Investment Management in the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School at the University of the Witwatersrand / This research project analyzed the relationship between bank risk taking, capital and operating efficiency in South African banks. The relationship between bank risk taking, capital and operating efficiency is one of the central topics in banking studies because of regulators’ and researchers’ quest to understand the determinants of bank risk taking. The research used a panel data set of top 4 South African banks for the period 2004 to 2013. The period under study includes the credit crisis which therefore introduces parameter instability with a known structural break or change point into the regression parameters. The research data was collected from financial statements of the sampled the banks to construct standard accounting measures of bank risk taking, capital adequacy and operating efficiency all of which were regressed using simultaneous equations in EViews. The regression results do not provide evidence of any relationship between risk taking and capital. The only statistically significant relationship is the inverse relationship between risk taking and efficiency. The finding that efficiency is negatively related to bank risk taking supports earlier research findings that bank risk taking is more pronounced in inefficient banks compared to efficient ones. It also supports the moral hazard hypothesis which posits that banks undertake more risk taking when faced with greater inefficiencies; and the “bad management” hypothesis which states declines in efficiency lead to increased risk taking. The regression results also do not provide evidence of a relationship between capital and efficiency: implying that capital and efficiency are not simultaneously determined. The results in this study oblige management and regulators to pay much attention to operating efficiency as a driver of bank risk taking. / MT2017

O objetivo geral desta tese foi investigar, sob a perspectiva da Teoria da Sinalização, a influência da adoção de práticas diferenciadas de governança corporativa sobre a acurácia das previsões (do consenso e individuais) dos analistas de investimento do mercado brasileiro. A Teoria da Sinalização, inicialmente desenvolvida para explicar problemas de informação no mercado de trabalho, trata dos problemas de assimetria informacional nos mercados e procura demonstrar como essa assimetria pode ser reduzida com a sinalização de mais informação. Buscou-se essa relação em virtude da ausência de uma teoria bem desenvolvida a respeito da natureza complexa e multidimensional da governança corporativa. A acurácia das previsões dos analistas foi mensurada a partir de metodologias propostas na literatura nacional e internacional. Como proxies para adoção de práticas diferenciadas de governança corporativa foram utilizados: o Brazilian Corporate Governance Index (BCGI), os níveis diferenciados de governança corporativa da Bovespa (Nível 1, Nível 2 e Novo Mercado) e as quatro dimensões do BCGI (disclosure, composição e funcionamento do conselho de administração, estrutura de propriedade e controle, e direitos dos acionistas), individualmente. A amostra de trabalho da pesquisa foi composta por 105 empresas de capital aberto com ações negociadas na Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo e que possuíam cobertura regular dos analistas de mercado, durante o período de 2000 a 2008. Foram consideradas, na amostra, tanto as instituições financeiras quanto as não-financeiras, a partir do universo das empresas de capital aberto com ações negociadas na Bovespa, totalizando 2.352 observações. Essas observações referem-se às previsões dos analistas (lucro por ação previsto), disponíveis e coletadas no banco de dados do Sistema Thomson ONE Analytics®, para cada uma das empresas da amostra, num determinado período. A amostra de trabalho consistiu num conjunto de dados em painel não balanceado e, a fim de atingir o objetivo principal, foram utilizadas as três abordagens para os modelos de regressão com uso de dados em painel: pooled, efeitos fixos e efeitos aleatórios. Os dados e as informações utilizados na pesquisa foram coletados a partir das fontes, tais como: Banco de Dados do Sistema Thomson ONE Analytics®, Banco de Dados do Sistema Economática®, site da Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo e Brazilian Corporate Governance Index. De acordo com os resultados encontrados, há evidências de que a governança corporativa influencia positivamente a acurácia das previsões dos analistas de investimento. Desse modo, pode-se considerar que a adoção de práticas diferenciadas de governança corporativa representa um sinal positivo emitido pelas empresas ao mercado de capitais, capaz de influenciar a acurácia das previsões, tanto do consenso quanto individuais, dos analistas de investimento do mercado brasileiro, e que esses sinais representam parâmetros na mudança da probabilidade condicional que definem as crenças, tanto dos analistas na elaboração de suas previsões e recomendações quanto dos investidores na escolha de seus investimentos. Entende-se que este trabalho contribui para a literatura nacional e internacional, a respeito de governança corporativa e previsão de analistas, mas, também, para o mercado de capitais brasileiro (analistas, investidores, auditores, bancos, instituições de investimento, agências de rating, fundos de pensão, órgãos reguladores, associações, bolsas de valores, próprias empresas, gestores, dentre outros), ao demonstrar os benefícios diretos e indiretos da adoção de práticas diferenciadas de governança corporativa por parte das empresas brasileiras / The general objective of this thesis was to investigate - under the perspective of the Signaling Theory - how much the adoption of distinctive corporate governance practices may influence the accuracy of forecasts (consensus and individual) made by investment analysts of the Brazilian market. The Signaling Theory, primarily developed to explain information difficulties in the labor market, deals with problems of information asymmetry in markets and attempts at showing how this asymmetry may be reduced with the signaling of more information. This relationship was pursued due to the lack of a well developed theory aimed at the complex and multidimensional nature of corporate governance. The accuracy of analysts forecasts was measured by means of methodologies proposed by both national and international literature. The proxies for the adoption of distinctive practices of corporate governance were: the Brazilian Corporate Governance Index (BCGI), the differentiated levels of corporate governance in Bovespa (Level 1, Level 2 and New Market), and the four dimensions of BCGI (disclosure, board composition and functioning, ownership structure and control, and shareholders rights) taken individually. The research sample comprised 105 listed companies with shares traded in the São Paulo Stock Exchange, which were regularly covered by market analysts, in the period ranging from 2000 to 2008. Within the world of listed companies, both financial and non-financial institutions were considered, totaling 2,352 observation instances. These refer to analysts forecasts (earning per share forecast), available and gathered at Thomson ONE Analytics® System Database about each company in the sample in a given period. The sample in the study consisted of a set of unbalanced panel data and three approaches were used to the models of regression using panel data to reach the main objective: pooled, fixed effects, and random effects. The data, as well as the information employed in this research come from sources such as: Thomson ONE Analytics® System Database, Economática® System Database, the site of São Paulo Stock Exchange, and the Brazilian Corporate Governance Index. According to the results reached, there is evidence that corporate governance positively influences the accuracy of investment analysts forecasts. It is thus possible to consider that the adoption of distinctive corporate governance practices means a positive sign sent to the capital market by companies a sign capable of influencing the accuracy of forecasts (both consensus and individual) of analysts of the Brazilian market, and it also means that these signs represent parameters in the change of conditional probability that define beliefs of analysts while building forecasts and recommendations, and of investors in their choice for investments. It is our understanding that this work contributes not only to the national and international literature as far as corporate governance and analysts forecasts go, but also to the Brazilian capital market (analysts, investors, auditors, banks, investment institutions, rating agencies, pension funds, regulatory bodies, associations, stock exchange, companies themselves, managers, among others) when it shows the direct and indirect benefits of the adoption of distinctive practices of corporate governance by Brazilian companies.