Having the author been involved in banking and finance for almost 25 years, this thesis intends to reflect on the role of banks with emphasis on cross border lending and credit rating, their effectiveness and the impacts of cultural differences. Perhaps this would not differ substantially from a researcher or a scholar, yet the exploratory approach taken in this research will be somewhat different as it deliberately seeks to answer a number of questions relevant to practitioners in today’s banking. In trying to achieve this goal, this thesis hopefully may find its way to international bankers wondering about the perspectives of their business in general and their profession in specific. It even may perhaps improve the understanding of their clients. The Basel committee which published the new Basel II framework on bank regulation and supervision was the result of long and careful discussions, wide consultations and comprehensive impact studies. Whereas Basel II covers the entire risk profile and supervision of financial institutions, this research is limited to the cross border lending by banks to companies and provides the views from both practicing international bankers and their customers on their 3 expectations regarding Basel II, credit rating and the relevance of context and culture differences. Bankers all over the world are being trained on how to read balance sheets, yet less attention is being paid as to by whom they are being created and how precisely these balance sheets came into existence, other than the accountancy standards applied. Bankers furthermore seem to agree on the fact that credit risks in large part are related to the management competencies, effective corporate governance and integrity of management and organization. The argument could be made that the assessment of management capabilities, governance and integrity may be hindered in those cases where the culture is little understood. In a three days conferences titled; “The Future of Relationship Banking”, 80 senior executives from international banks and large companies were gathered in Punta del Este, Uruguay and were asked to speak about these aspects. A transcript of the conference is provided as annex to this thesis (Annex 1) and serves to triangulate the findings of the research. Main findings of three management papers were presented by the researcher during the conference. A survey was performed during the conference and in addition, through an online survey, in total over 100 practitioners in the field participated in the survey. Results show a variation of conclusions, but very especially seem to confirm the view, contrary to the approach taken in Basel II, that cultural differences and context are felt to be highly relevant in cross border lending.

Despite its prominent role in firms' external financing, debt is highly underrepresented in the academic literature, compared to equity financing (Cumming, 2016). This thesis investigates corporate debt under diverse bankruptcy regulation in Europe (Chapter 1), as well as benefits arising from debt renegotiation among US firms (Chapter 2 and 3). The first study examines whether corporate borrowing responds to the strength of creditor rights, which differ greatly across countries. We use a difference-in-differences (DiD) methodology around an EU-wide bankruptcy reform in 2002 as an exogenous shock that reshaped the institutional environment for corporate debtors and their creditors in Europe. Our findings suggest that subsidiaries in the EU decrease their leverage when they are exposed to less creditor-friendly regimes after 2002, while there is hardly any impact on leverage when shifting to an equally creditor-friendly regime, and even less so when shifting to a more creditor-friendly one. We conclude that the legal environment under which credit is granted matters for firms' access to finance. The following two studies take a closer look into the bank-firm relationship during which renegotiations of existing loans are frequently observed. While the area of private debt renegotiation (among healthy firms) is not very well researched so far, this is the first study to link between loan renegotiation and firms' credit rating (Chapter 2) and firms' adjustments toward capital structure targets (Chapter 3). Firms' credit rating is important as it determines the rate firms have to pay for private debt and it governs capital requirements of lenders (Basel II and III). The study shows a positive impact on a firm's credit ratings whenever there was a loan amendment in the month prior to the rating update. Amending loans after the initial loan contract therefore carries signalling power to the capital market (in line with existing literature) and implies benefits to both borrowers and lenders. The third study finds an additional beneficial effect of loan amendments for firms. We investigate whether loan amendments might serve as a channel available to firms to speed up their adjustments toward capital structure targets. Against a broad range of alternative leverage target definitions used in the capital structure literature recently, loan amendments tend to accelerate firms' speed of adjustments by up to 10.6 percent points within twelve months after the loan has been amended (in addition to firms' general speed of adjustment). Therefore, our studies provide evidence for additional, novel benefits of corporate debt renegotiation which encourages firms to update and optimise financial contract design even after origination.

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka huruvida det finns ett samband mellan andelen kvinnor i bankstyrelser i Europa och bankens kreditbetyg. Studien har ett positivistiskt synsätt och präglas av en kvantitativ metod. Studien har vidare använt sig av en tvärsnittsdesign och därmed observerat flera fall vid en given tidpunkt. Den empiriska sekundärdatan är dels insamlad via databasen Thomson Reuters Eikon som erhåller finansiell data från noterade bolag över hela världen. Studien har även hämtat information om kreditbetyg för bankerna via Standard & Poor’s databas. Vidare har en multivariat analys genomförts för att kunna upptäcka ett eventuellt samband mellan den beroende variabeln, kreditbetyg, och den oberoende variabeln, andel kvinnor i styrelsen. Studien presenterar även deskriptiv statistik samt en korrelationsanalys över den insamlade datan. Studiens resultat visar på att det finns ett positivt samband mellan andelens kvinnliga styrelseledamöter i europeiska bankstyrelser och bankens kreditbetyg. Detta betyder således att om andelen kvinnliga styrelseledamöter ökar, så gör även kreditbetyget detsamma vilket indikerar att kreditrisken för banken sjunker. Detta resultat stödjer tidigare studier som menar att kvinnor i styrelser är mer riskaversiva än män (Arayssi et al., 2016; Huang och Kisgen, 2013). Studiens förslag till vidare forskning är att studera flera olika fall över tid, istället för att utgå från en given tidpunkt, vilket skulle möjliggöra undersökning av kausalitet mellan variablerna. Vidare ter det sig intressant att ta hänsyn till styrelseledamöternas ålder i vidare forskning då forskning indikerar att riskprofilen kan förändras beroende på ålder. Ett annat förslag är att inhämta kreditbetyg från fler kreditinstitut än endast S&P för att undersöka om resultatet skulle te sig annorlunda då. Slutligen kan det vara av intresse att ta hänsyn till om banken har spritt eller kontrollerat ägande då dessa faktorer kan tänkas påverka kreditbetyget och således kreditrisken i banken. / The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the proportion of women in bank boards in Europe and the banks credit rating. The study has a positivistic approach and is characterized by a quantitative method to respond to the purpose of the study. Furthermore, the study has used a cross sectional design which means that it has observed several cases at a given time. The empirical data has been collected partly via the database Thomson Reuters Eikon which present financial data from listed companies worldwide. The study has also collected information about the banks credit rating from the database of Standard & Poor. Furthermore, a multivariate analysis has been completed in order to discover any connections between the dependent variable, credit rating and the independent variable, the proportion of women in the board. The study also presents descriptive statistics together with a correlation analysis over the collected data. The result from the study shows a positive correlation between the proportion of female board members in european bank boards and the banks credit rating. This means that if the proportion of women in bank boards increases, the banks credit rating also increases which indicates that the banks credit risk decreases. This result supports previous studies that say that women in boards are more risk averse than men (Arayssi et al., 2016; Huang och Kisgen, 2013). Suggestions for further studies within the field is to do a similar study but to study several cases over time which would allow investigation of causality between the variables. Furthermore, it would be interesting to take the board members age into account as previous studies indicates that the risk profile changes depending on age. Another suggestion for further studies is to collect credit ratings from more than S&P in order to investigate if the result may differ from this study. Finally, it could be of interest to consider if the bank has scattered or controlled ownership as these factors can affect the credit rating and thus the credit risk.

Este trabalho procura aprofundar o estudo de anomalias ao CAPM no mercado acionário brasileiro e explorar as relações destas anomalias com a característica dificuldade financeira, a qual é representada pela classificação de risco das empresas, usando estratégias de compra e venda a descoberto baseadas nas anomalias. As anomalias estudadas serão o efeito de momento, momento nos lucros, a volatilidade idiossincrática, o crescimento dos ativos, o investimento em capital e o efeito contrário. Nosso objetivo é examinar o impacto da característica dificuldade financeira sobre o retorno esperado das ações de empresas do grupo de menor classificação de risco. Para cumprir nosso objetivo, inicialmente usamos todas as ações da Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo (Bovespa) para comparar estas com a amostra de empresas que possuem classificação de crédito de longo prazo. O período estudado é de Janeiro de 2000 a Dezembro de 2012. Os métodos usados foram baseados em ordenação de carteiras e regressões univariadas e multivariadas de corte transversal. Encontramos algumas evidências de que empresas com classificação de crédito sugerem retornos anormais diferentes daqueles da amostra de todas as empresas. Este resultado foi significante, negativo e persistente em todas as especificações. Evidenciamos também que para empresas do menor tercil de classificação de crédito, o efeito contrário está presente e com retornos anormais positivos e significantes de 2,02% a.m. Isto nos dá alguma evidência de que a deterioração de crédito poderia ter um impacto no retorno ajustado exigido pelos investidores. / In this paper, we extend the CAPM anomalies study field in the Brazilian stock market and we explore the relationship between these anomalies and financial distress, represented by a credit rating classification, using anomaly-based trading strategies. The anomalies selected for this study are: momentum effect, earnings momentum, idiosyncratic volatility, asset growth, capital investment and the reversal effect. Our main goal is to investigate the impact of financial distress on the expected return of companies in lowest credit rating group. To fulfill this goal, first we use all the stocks in the São Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa), to compare these with the subset of companies which have a long-term credit rating. We studied the period from January 2000 through December 2012. The procedures carried in this study are based on portfolio sorts and cross-sectional univariate and multivariate regressions. We find evidence that the subsample of companies with a credit rating have abnormal returns different from that of the whole sample. These results are statistically significant, negative and persistent across all specifications. We also find some evidence that for companies in the lowest tercile of credit rating, the reversal effect is present and with positive and statistically significant abnormal returns in the magnitude of 2.02% per month. This gives some evidence that credit deterioration could have an impact on the risk-adjusted return required by investors.

銀行借款作為企業的一種資金來源，企業與銀行的往來關係可為企業帶來附加利益，且藉由中小企業對銀行揭露其內部資訊、以及銀行借款須定期付息的現金流出壓力，銀行就能對企業營運扮演監督的角色，降低中小企業的代理問題與資訊不對稱現象，降低企業經營的道德風險；若有了長期經營的銀行往來關係，企業不但可以降低利息、增加借款額度，也可以為建立企業聲譽，有利於企業再行籌資。本研究即是建立中小企業的信用評等模型，並探討銀行往關係所隱含的意義，並討論「銀行往來關係」是否可以成為中小企業企業倒帳風險及經營狀況的代理變數。 實證結果發現：(1)「該企業過去是否已獲得銀行授信核可」為銀行往來關係中最重要、最具分類能力的變數。根據此項特性值，我們可以將樣本分成特性明顯不同的兩個群體。並且根據不同的群體，本研究建立四個不同的模型。模型一、二適用於「過去曾獲得授信核可之企業」，模型三、四則適用於「過去未曾獲得授信核可之企業」。若比較模型一、二與模型三、四，可發現模型一、二的解釋能力與預測能力優於模型三、四；這表示，「過去曾獲得授信核可之企業」，其行為與風險是較能預測的。(2)關於銀行往來關係，我們使用了諸多變數作為銀行往來關係的代理變數，包括企業本身及企業負責人在銀行借款的額度、額度變動率、借款帳戶的屬性（是支票存款、擔保放款或無擔保放款）、負債資金的性質（長期、中期借款或短期借款）等、“企業被金融機構查詢次數”、“企業負責人個人被金融機構查詢次數”等；攸關程度較高的變數如下：企業中期放款餘額（及其變動率）、企業短期放款餘額（及其變動率）、個人有擔保放款餘額及其變動率、企業及個人無違約情事之放款總額。關於模型結果，對台灣中小企業而言，銀行往來關係的確可以作為衡量企業倒帳風險、營運狀況、財務能力的代理變數。(3)本研究各模型皆以銀行往來關係為最主要的模型變數。整個來說，所有模型的分類正確率與預測正確率皆在75%以上，顯示這些模型的確能在事前辨別企業是否倒帳。另外，在可忍受的誤拒率水準之下，各模型的誤授率最低可達6.97%，幾乎與國內全體銀行的總平均逾放比相同；這樣的模型低誤授率即可用自動化的數量評等模型達成，顯示出此模型在實務上具有實用性。(4)在其他非銀行往來關係的變數項方面，「企業登記資本額」與中小企業各項特性值皆顯著相關，顯示出企業之登記資本額的確隱含著重要的資訊內涵；在中小企業嚴重資訊不對稱、財報資訊不真實的狀況之下，企業營運規模與資本額可作為中小企業獲利能力、償債能力、資訊不對稱程度的代理變數，也是銀行在執行借款作業時的一個攸關變數。

Financial sector of an economy plays an important role in its economic development and prosperity of the country. Banking industry serves as the backbone of the financial sector that accumulates saving from surplus economic units in the form of deposits and provides it to deficit economic units in the form of advances. Banking industry provides support to economy and industries in specific in the time of recessions and economic crisis. But when banks are at the heart of economic recession or banks are the cause of financial crisis like the recent past financial crisis 2007-09, it makes the situation worst for economic recovery. So it is of great importance to keenly observe the performance of the banks and their compliance with the regulatory requirements.   Performance of the banks is measured at two levels, one is at the management and regulatory level of the banks and another is at external rating agencies. Purpose of regulatory and supervisory rating systems is to measure the bank performance at internal level and its compliance with regulatory requirements to keep the bank on right track. These ratings are highly confidential and are only available to the bank management.  External credit rating agencies examine and evaluate the banks and issue ratings for the general public and investors in particulars. It is of great importance that both these ratings present the same results about the condition of the banks to provide clear information to investors and management. In past several banks suffer from bankruptcy that was the failure of both internal rating systems and credit rating agencies.   CAMELS is the supervisory and regulatory rating system implemented by State Bank of Pakistan. It takes into account six important components of a bank when it evaluates performance of the bank. These components are Capital, Assets, Management, Earning, Liquidity and Sensitivity to market risk. Ratings is assigned to theses components on the scale of 1 to 5 and that is a base for composite rating that also ranged from 1 to 5. PACRA rating agency is the dominant credit rating agency of Pakistan that performs ratings for most banks and industries in the country. In our research we examine the similarities in the results generated by CAMELS rating system and PACRA rating agency. For that purpose we sample seventeen commercial banks of Pakistan Banking industry.   We observed that results generated by sample banks do not show any similarities with each other. This might be an indication of the banks that went on to bankruptcy in past three to four years or a future threat to financial sector of Pakistan.

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&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.

Credit granting is not only one core business but also the major profit source of banks. Non-Performing Loan Ratio (NPL Ratio) is an important index to evaluate the quality of credit granting and to influence profitability of banks. Recently, NPL ratio, which soared to record level, of local banks does not only hurt their asset quality but also threaten their surviving space due to the changes of internal structure, overbanking, internationalization of local banking industry, economic recession, the subprime crisis in 2007. Theoretically, banks have their own credit granting policy and credit examination system; however, there is soaring NPL ratio to cause huge NPL losses in banks because of the differences of credit grating practices. Nevertheless, there are some local banks which have lower NPL ratio. Therefore, this research is to help us to understand the possible factors of overdue loan that happened in corporate banking, and try to discover the key factors. Also, try to sampling those key factors from the past experiences for future crediting reference. The main profit from a bank is the margin of deposit and credit loan interest. Therefore, the overdue loan is highly related to a bank¡¦s profit. Moreover, it is necessary for banks to pay more cost to make up the losses which are caused by the NPL. Certainly, it is safest way for banks to acquire 100% collaterals for creditors¡¦ right, although 100% collaterals could be acquired, the creditors cannot ignore the impacts (on the creditors¡¦ profitability) of the necessary litigation expenses for disposing the collaterals. As a result, fully recognize the customers¡¦ credit condition before drawing is the only way to avoid the NPL loss and ensure the profit.

Introduktion: Historiskt sett har de svenska företagens lånebaserade finansiering mestadels utgjorts av banklån. Efter finanskrisen 2008 har bankerna tvingats till att minska utlåningen när de numera jobbar utefter det nya regelverket Basel III. Rapporter från bland annat riksbanken och svenskt näringsliv menar att detta regelverk kommer att slå hårdast mot svenska små bolag. Forskning inom området menar att den svenska marknaden för företagsobligationer inte fått den utveckling den borde haft. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att söka en förståelse till varför den svenska marknaden för företagsobligationer förefaller att vara underutvecklad bland små bolag, samt att undersöka urvalets lämplighet för ett framtida inträde på den svenska företagsobligationsmarknaden. För att styrka uppsatsens resultat kommer studien även att inkludera ett jämförelseindex hämtat från Large Cap.   Metod: För att infria studiens syfte har en metodtriangulering tillämpats. Empirin har delvis samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med aktörer listade på svenska Small Cap.  En intervjuguide utformades på basis av studiens förda problematik och teoretiska referensram. Empirin har även samlats in genom en multipel regressions analys i syfte att undersöka urvalets lämplighet för ett framtida inträde på den svenska företagsobligationsmarknaden.  Slutsats: Resultatet vi erhöll från studien är att den svenska marknaden för företagsobligationer fortfarande är underutvecklad. Studien visade att de mindre bolagens kunskap till marknaden är bristfällig och att bankernas nya roll som intermediär skapar informationsasymmetrier och således stora transaktionskostnader. Studien kan även konkludera att företags storlek, mätt i totala tillgångar, skulle kunna utgöra en företagsspecifik variabel som kan förklara en otillräcklig kreditvärdighet för ett eventuellt inträde på företagsobligationsmarknaden. / Introduction: Historically, the Swedish companies' loan-based financing mostly consists of bank loans. After the 2008 financial crisis, banks have been forced to reduce lending as they now work along the new Basel III regulations. The Swedish Riksbank and the Swedish business community believe that this regulation will hit hardest towards smaller companies. Researches in the field believe that the Swedish corporate bond market did not receive the development it ought to have been. Aim: The purpose of this study is to seek an understanding of why the Swedish corporate bond market seems to be underdeveloped among small companies and also to examine the future suitability regarding a future entry on the Swedish corporate bond market, for the selection. To put the study results into perspective, the study will include a benchmark gathered from the Large Cap. Method: To meet the study objective, a method triangulation is applied. The empirical data has partly been collected through semi-structured interviews with actors listed on the Swedish Small Cap. An interview guide was designed on the basis of the study´s problematization and theoretical framework. The empirical data is also collected through a multiple regression analysis, in order to examine the sample suitability for future entry into the Swedish corporate bond market. Conclusion: The results we obtained from this study is that the Swedish corporate bond market is still underdeveloped. The study showed that the smaller companies knowledge of the market is insufficient and that the banks' new role as intermediate are creating information asymmetries and henceforth high transaction costs. The study may also conclude that the company's size, measured in total assets, could provide a firm-specific variable that can explain an inadequate credit rating for a possible entry into the corporate bond market.

本研究旨在探討不同的市場參與者是否會視公司自願性採用Clawback條款與否，而給予不同的回應。以2007至2011年間納入Russel 3000指數之公司(排除金融服務與保險業)為樣本，本研究發現，與未採用Clawback條款之公司相比，自願性採用Clawback條款之公司，其權益資金成本較低，且信用評等較佳，顯示投資人及信用評等機構皆認為Clawback條款有助於提升公司之財務報導品質，進而降低其所承受之資訊風險。本研究進一步以F-score (Dechow et al. 2011)來衡量公司的事前舞弊風險，並將樣本區分為高舞弊風險組與低舞弊風險組。本研究發現，Clawback條款僅在低舞弊風險組與權益資金成本呈顯著負相關，顯示財務品質較佳之公司確實會透過自願性採用Clawback條款來向資本市場彰顯其信心，而投資人亦會以較低之要求報酬做出回應。然而，本研究亦發現，Clawback條款僅在高舞弊風險組與信用評等呈顯著正相關，這意味著信用評等機構能夠區別Clawback條款對於高舞弊風險公司及低舞弊風險公司的效益，並針對尋求實質改善的公司做出正面回應。最後，本研究使用機構投資人持股比例，將樣本區分為高外部監督與低外部監督(亦即低代理問題與高代理問題)兩組。迴歸結果顯示，僅有在公司所受到的外部監督程度較低時，Clawback條款方會與權益資金成本及信用評等呈顯著相關。 / This study examines whether different market participants react differently to voluntary adopters and non-adopters of clawback provisions. Based on the sample of non-financial firms included in the Russel 3000 index from year 2007 to 2011, the empirical results show that, comparing to non-adopters, firms who voluntarily adopt the clawback provisons have lower cost of equity capital and higher credit rating, suggesting that both investors and credit rating agency regard clawback provisions as a means to reduce information risk and, therefore, enhance firms’ financial reporting quality. This study further uses the F-score (Dechow et al. 2011) to separate the sample into high versus low risk of occuring fraudulent financial reporting groups. The regression results from both groups indicate that the adoption of clawback provisions is negatively related to cost of equity capital only when firms have lower fraud risk. This finding implies that firms with good financial reporting quality tend to adopt clawback provisions to signal their confidence on financial reporting, and investors respond by requiring lower returns. In contrast, the results report that the adoption of clawback provisions is positively related to credit rating only when firms are more likely to incur fraudulent financial reporting, implying that credit rating agency appears to consider the effect of clawback provisions and responds to firms who seek real improvement in their financial reporting quality. Finally, this study adopts institutional investors’ ownership to seperate the sample into high versus low external monitoring (i.e., low versus high agency problem) groups. The regression results from both groups show that the effects of clawback provisions on cost of equity capital and credit rating remain only for firms that are subjected to low external monitoring.