Asset Liability Management is relevant to, and critical for, the sound management of the finances of any organization that invests to meet its future cash flow needs and capital requirements. For a life insurance company in particular, it is an important component of the actuarial work in the company. What an insurance company sells to customers is a promise. Cash flow testing is such a process of testing the insurance company’s ability to keep its promises. The purpose of this report is to provide a brief introduction of the assets and liabilities of an insurance company and how cash flow testing is done in Prophet, an actuarial software used in the industry. / text

Práce se zabývá analýzou, legislativní úpravou a praktickou aplikací squeeze out, neboli vytěsnění minoritních akcionářů z akciových společností. Na základě analýzy teoretických konceptů nabídek převzetí obhajuje proces squeeze out jako legitimní a efektivní nástroj zvýšení flexibility řízení a správy společností. Práce poskytuje návody a doporučení majoritním akcionářům jak co nejlépe provést squeeze out. Práce dále poskytuje doporučení pro zákonodárné orgány ČR a EU, jakož i pro orgány dohledu nad kapitálovými trhy, na základě kterých by měla být provedena revize legislativní úpravy vytěsnění.

Biotechnology generated solutions have been hailed as potential cures to many of the problems facing the world today. New therapeutics will eradicate disease, new agricultural products will solve food shortages, and industrial application will improve productivity with reduced environmental impact. Despite the much anticipated benefits of biotechnology, the industry faces significant challenges that must be overcome in the coming decades. Biotechnology is an inherently complex field with a high degree of uncertainty and associated risks. In addition to the risk associated with project development and delivery, businesses looking to extract an economic return from the provision of biotechnology products and services face significant financial risk. This is exacerbated by the long lead times in biotechnology product development and the expensive nature of research and development. This thesis looks investigates the multi faceted problem of biotechnology valuation in Australia using a multi method approach designed to provide greater insight into the valuation challenges facing the industry and identify key value drivers. The approach incorporates a broad qualitative investigation, complimented by more focused quantitative studies into specific valuation issues surrounding IPO and project valuation. Australian biotechnology firms face a significant challenge to raise sufficient capital in order to remain internationally competitive. The current industry structure and funding mechanisms encourage creation of small firms with narrow pipelines, exacerbating the risk of company failure and acting as an impediment to sustainability and, therefore, investment in the sector. Despite the challenges facing the Australian biotechnology industry, the nation possesses a competitive advantage in the strength of local science which, if fully leveraged, should see the development of an internationally competitive industry. Through improved funding mechanisms which encourage the creation of sustainable business models, increased investor participation in the industry should see a greater portion of the value generated through biotechnology retained by local participants. An IPO is likely the largest single capital raising in a company's history. A quantitative investigation into the factors influencing the amount of underpricing and money left on the table for Australian biotechnology IPOs found that the amount of money left on the table was more critical than the level of underpricing. Additionally the impact of market sentiment on biotechnology IPOs was investigated with increased media coverage found to be positively related to the amount of money left on the table. Using project valuation models, the drivers of value over the life of a typical biotechnology project were identified. Key drivers of biotechnology value are commercial viability, coupled with development cost and time. The ability of management to control these elements is crucial. Analysis of project valuations using a traditional DCF model found value estimates exhibited a greater level of uncertainty than those calculated using more contemporary methods of decision tree and real option analysis. Additionally, incorporation of management flexibility into valuation assessment using real options techniques increased the perceived value of biotechnology projects. The value of management flexibility was found to be most relevant for early stage projects where the option to abandon was found to greatly influence values.

Investment, financing and dividend policies are critical for firms. The natures of these three policies may be significantly influenced by bankers on the board. Previous studies have examined the relationship between financing policy and bankers on the board. However, the influence of bankers on the board on corporate investment and dividend policies remains unexamined. Therefore, this paper tries to shed further light on whether bankers on the board affect corporate investment-cash flow sensitivity and dividend policy. This study collects data from Taiwan publicly traded corporations that have banker directors between 2003 and 2007, together with a matching sample consisting of firms without banker directors. Variables used to construct empirical analyses are from the Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) database. The results show that the presence of bankers appointed to corporate directors and the percentage of banker directors positively affect the firm¡¦s investment-cash flow sensitivity positively. This study also finds a negative relationship between the presence of banker directors and the likelihood of dividend payment. The percentage of banker directors has negative impacts on the likelihood of dividend payment and corporate dividend payout ratio.

According to the existing literatures, there are few directly discussions about the relations of cash flow volatility on firm value and the issues of cash flow volatility are relatively disadvantage to those of earning volatility, arousing the interest of this study.Therefore, this study verifies the effect of cash flow volatility on firm value by using data of listed companies in Taiwan and the method of Pooled Regression. Also, the number of companies are divided up based on the median of cash flow¡Bdebt ratio and total asset, and examine which circumstances are more significant statistically. Finally, this study verifies the effect of earning volatility and earning management on firm value to explain that cash flow volatility is more effective on firm value. The empirical results show that cash flow volatility is negatively on firm value, and the effects are more significant statistically in small asset firms¡Blow debt ratio firms and high cash flow firms. But earning volatility is not significant statistically on firm value, and earning management is ineffective on firm value. The results indirectly explain that cash flow volatility is a more effective indicator on firm value and explain that managers managing earning to increase firm value are useless. According to the empirical results, there is no benefit when managers continue stabilizing earnings based on earning management. If investors continue selecting companies to invest based on earning volatility, the effects could be less than the ones of cash flow volatility. Therefore, the empirical results provide one indicator of the evaluations of firm value with managers and investors.

Customer is one of the most important profit resources for a firm. It is increasingly apparent that management will make a decision by customer value. This research focuses on the most critical aspect of a firm: customer lifetime value. It is used to valuing customer lifetime value by discount cash flow approach. This research uses the real option approach (ROA) and connects the concept of customer lifetime value in marketing to build a new valuation model. Real option approach is a new method for estimating the value. It resolves some disadvantage which traditional financial models such as discount cash flow approach can not value the managerial flexibility. In practice, management has many options. These options provide flexibility that adds to the value of customers. The customer investment (e.g., service and advertising) can be deferred at the design phase and under uncertainty, it can be expanded or extended if it does better than expected, or abandoned if it gets worse. There are various types of options that are related to valuing customers, such as deferral, abandonment, expansion, and contraction of investment. This research provides good solution to value customer lifetime value by using real option approach and uses bank wealth management programs as practice evidence. This research builds a fitness model to value managerial flexibility. This research finds out that the domestic banks original set up the VIP migration boundary according to American experience are unreasonable and should be adjusted. Besides, when domestic banks set up the VIP migration boundary, the most important factor they should consider is deposit growth rate instead American experience. Finally, the practice evidence of the influence the expected factors on VIP migration boundary confirms with this research¡¦s expectation.

ABSTRACT The problem of interest rate risk exposure has become increasingly important for financial institutions. There is a direct relation between the duration of life insurance products and its present value sensitivity to changes in market interest rates. This article describes the historical development of duration and its application in the study of life insurance products. This study examines the interest rate risk exposure of life insurance products.

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After semiconductor industry, TFT-LCD technology has become the other valuable technique for Taiwan to play an important role in the world. Both government and investors have already spent lots of effort to make it grow during last decade. To be able to increase the competitive, we are looking forward to merge the TFT-LCD manufactories. This paper focuses on the market expectation of merge of TFT-LCD industry in Taiwan. This paper has use two stock market public corporate, A.U.O. and Q.D.I, as our study and observation models and by applies the L-G model from Kermit D. Larson and Nicholas J. Gonedes, we will be able to prove the concept and examine our observation cases. On the other hand, I use the free cash flow model from Damodaran to evaluate the capital value for both companies. In particular, we examine them in three different scenarios to analysis their firm-value and use them as the ratio for future stock merge between both companies. By simulate our observation models and experiment for their fair market value; we will be able to demonstrate the L-G model is appropriate in this particular circumstance. According to the result and demonstration of cases study, it can provide the new prospective of Taiwan TFT-LCD industry in the future.

In light of the limitations of cost and profit centers, this research attempts to explore how enterprise N integrates managerial information and thus transforms into the concept of an investment center. The BCG matrix (Boston Consulting Group¡A1970) is adopted as the major analytical tool in this study. With this tool we are able to acquire the market attractiveness and profitability of enterprise N, its business units, and its subsidiaries, so as to facilitate business resource allocation. The FCF analysis reveals the balance of funds between individual business units, subsidiaries, and the enterprise as a whole. Calculation of EVA reveals the contribution that each business unit and subsidiary makes to the enterprise. We furthermore interview executives in order to verify the preliminary result of the BCG model. We also adopt SWOT analysis to investigate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of each business unit located in the respective quadrant of the BCG model. Thus, we may be lead to understand the fund allocation and strategic intention of respective business units and subsidiaries. Finally, we conclude and make suggestions for enterprise N, both regarding financial and strategic aspects. This study aims to find out the key success factors regarding how enterprise N makes and executes business resource allocation and synergy development. We hope that this case study may provide valuable information and serve as a refined tool of business analysis for enterprise N.