Embraced in this study, is the content and structural approach on how corporate mergers and acquisitions should be planned and executed to facilitate post-acquisition synergies and improvement in customer service levels. The project covers Saambou bank post-acquisition business failure after take-over by First Rand Group, in a horizontal integration process that did not diversify or restructure product or service offerings between the two banks. There being no positive impact on post-acquisition market share and competition sustainability by the two banks, it implied that, the post-acquisition strategy did not adequately address the business risk factors that ultimately impaired the expected synergies of a take-over bid. Lack of proper post-acquisition business plan resulted in corporate failures pertaining to ineffective competitive strategies, non optimization of market and service levels, compounded by poor corporate governance resulting in the bank's internal control procedures and processes failing. Furthermore, poor customer service levels and transgression of the Bank's Usury Act regulations, rendered the organization more uncompetitive. The over-reliance on few large corporate customer deposits added a huge element of financial risk that marginalized Saambou bank's going concern prospects. Hence, upon experiencing few large corporate deposit withdrawals, for instance by Investec, resulting in the bank undergoing liquidity problems that resulted in it being placed under curatorship. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

The increased activities within the mergers and acquisitions market in recent times has highlighted the importance of Commissions, whose responsibility it is to protect competition in the common market place. An area of disagreement which often arises between merging parties and authorities - at the expense of time and money - is the definition of a relevant market within which to measure competition. This proposal seeks, with the aid of a recent case (Unilever vs. Competition Commission of South Africa), to identify why relevant markets are so incoherently drawn and whether guidelines mutually agreed upon between the merging parties and the Commission could aid in reaching a timely and cost effective resolution. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, 2003.

Although there has been over a century of research on memory and consolidation, there remains no consensus with respect to the nature of episodic memories over time. This study tests two prominent theories (Standard Consolidation Theory and Trace Transformation Hypothesis), which make opposing predictions as to the quality of remote episodic memory, by investigating memories for film clips. Using true/false questions to test recall immediately, 3 days, and 7 days after encoding, these experiments demonstrate that details (both perceptual and story-line details) are lost, while the gist of memories is maintained over time. These data also suggest that gist and detail may be maintained independently in the brain. These results broaden our understanding of recent and remote memory, and provide support for the transformation view of consolidation. In the future, the transfer of this paradigm to neuroimaging will allow us to investigate the neural basis of episodic memory over time.

Although there has been over a century of research on memory and consolidation, there remains no consensus with respect to the nature of episodic memories over time. This study tests two prominent theories (Standard Consolidation Theory and Trace Transformation Hypothesis), which make opposing predictions as to the quality of remote episodic memory, by investigating memories for film clips. Using true/false questions to test recall immediately, 3 days, and 7 days after encoding, these experiments demonstrate that details (both perceptual and story-line details) are lost, while the gist of memories is maintained over time. These data also suggest that gist and detail may be maintained independently in the brain. These results broaden our understanding of recent and remote memory, and provide support for the transformation view of consolidation. In the future, the transfer of this paradigm to neuroimaging will allow us to investigate the neural basis of episodic memory over time.

No description available.

This thesis examines the role of market micro-structure and communication in takeovers that involve shareholders' investment decisions and the selection of a takeover mechanism by a raider under asymmetric information. For this purpose, rational expectations equilibrium models are employed and examples are worked in detail. / In the context of market micro-structure, it is shown that there is a greater probability of success of a takeover when the shareholders are risk averse that when they are risk neutral, and the probability that a takeover succeeds is related non-positively to the fraction of shares held by the raider. / In order to study communication, two takeover mechanisms are studied which are tender offers and negotiated takeovers. A negotiated takeover allows for communication between the shareholders and the raider before any takeover announcement. It is shown that communication offsets partially the negative impact of risk aversion on the probability that a hostile takeover occurs.

With increasing development in the oil and gas industry, exploration and production is continuously moving deeper off the continental shelf and onto the continental slopes. This increases the risk of submarine slope failures leading to damage of offshore structures. Thus there is a need to study and understand properties of offshore marine clays on slopes. This study was undertaken in order to understand better the characteristics of a sub-marine clay deposit taken from the Gulf of Mexico. This thesis presents the results of SHANSEP triaxial testing performed on undisturbed samples of Gulf of Mexico clay. Background information is given about the clay, the sampling program and the laboratory testing program. The GEOTAC Truepath automated stress path triaxial apparatus implemented for this research and the laboratory procedures used are described in detail. Data is summarized from the various types of tests run on the clay (CKoU compression and extension, CIU compression and extension tests, consolidations tests) and the stress history of the deposit is evaluated. The SHANSEP reconsolidation technique was used for a comprehensive program of Koconsolidated-undrained (CKoU) triaxial compression and extension tests at overconsolidation ratios (OCR) ranging from one to eight. Eighteen tests were run on jumbo piston core samples from one particular core. The consolidation phase of these SHANSEP tests provided most of the preconsolidation pressure values used to establish the stress history at the two test sites. These tests were used to estimate the in situ Ko and how it varies with OCR. The undrained shear phase of the tests provides detailed information on the values of S and m for use in the SHANSEP undrained strength equation, Su= 0vo = S(OCR)m, effective stress failure envelopes, etc.

A dilute suspension of soil particles in water will normally flocculate and settle under gravity to form a bed of consolidating soil. The essential difference between the suspension and the soil is that effective stresses exist in the soil. This thesis is concerned with the effective stress behaviour during the sedimentation and consolidation processes. Chapters two and three are a description of the equipment and experimental procedures used to determine void ratio changes, pore pressures and effective stresses during this soil formation process. The density measuring technique developed, using an X-ray source and a scintillation counter, is described in some detail. An experiment consists of monitoring the sedimentation, form an initially uniform suspension, of an inorganic clayey silt in a 102 mm I.D. column. Experimental results are presented and discussed in the next two chapters. Some novel aspects of stress/strain behaviour (in one dimensional consolidation) are revealed. In particular an intermediate zone is identified, which has properties between those of a suspension and a soil in the traditional sense. This zone does have effective stresses, but the effective stress/void ratio relationship is not unique. Theoretical consideration of settling suspensions and soil consolidation is covered in chapter six, forming an introduction to the next chapter, where a large strain soil consolidation theory is modified and applied to the intermediate zone. Differences between the theory and experimental results largely reflect the inaccuracies resulting from the simplifying assumptions necessary to keep the mathematics simple. The expulsion of pore water, rather than soil compressibility, is the major factor in determining consolidation behaviour of the intermediate phase. Finally, some recommendations are made as to how to continue the study and on applications to real problems such as dredging, pollution and land reclamation.

This thesis presents an analysis of the extent of democratic consolidation in Ghana by examining the role of state institutions, the institutionalization of the political parties and the de facto two-party system, as well as civil society and interest groups. It addresses the following specific questions. What has been the role of state institutions in the democratic consolidation process? To what extent have the political parties and the de facto two-party system been institutionalized and what has been their contribution in the democratic consolidation process? How vibrant are civil society and interest groups and what has been their contribution in the democratic consolidation process? What are the challenges and constraints faced by state institutions, the institutionalized political parties and party system, as well as civil society and interest groups in contributing to the democratic consolidation process? What measures should be adopted to deal with these challenges and constraints? Focusing on the July 2012 presidential succession and the December 2012 general elections as case studies, the analysis in this thesis demonstrates that state institutions such as the Executive, Parliament, the Judiciary, the Electoral Commission and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, as well as an institutionalized political parties and party system and civil society and interest groups have made some contribution in the democratic consolidation process. However, the analysis also demonstrates that there are a few challenges and constraints that need to be addressed before Ghana can be considered a consolidated democracy

The work was conceived as an attempt to document an aspect of what has been called the rise of the "corporate economy" or of "managerial capitalism" (or, less informatively, the "new industrial revolution"): that is the relative decline of market relations within the system of industrial capitalism and the corresponding growth of economic activity within large corporations. Though this process of change began in Britain in the late nineteenth century, it advanced more slowly than the contemporaneous movement in the United States. Hence, it is argued, the interwar years saw the crucial developments in the structure of industry in Britain, though these have been underestimated because of the absence of a reliable descriptive study of this period. Attention is focussed on the role of mergers in this structural change, since a merger, being a discrete event in the biography of a firm, throws the causes of these developments into clear relief. The study is designed as a critical gloss on economic generalisations about the rise of large scale enterprise based on the propensity to monopolise, an explanation with no diachronic significance; and on the crude technolo- gical and economic determinisms dominating the historical writing which add little to Philip Snowden's classic statement that "trusts ... are inevitable. They will continue, whatever obstacles we attempt to put in their path". [continued in text ...]