Includes bibliographical references. / This paper examines the characteristics of earnings quality, reviews the literature that assesses whether earnings quality does in fact affect market valuations and evaluates whether trading strategies based on this knowledge yield abnormal positive returns. This paper looks at why earnings quality should be an important consideration in evaluation [of] a firm, then investigates research on the accounting effect on valuations, covering the accrual effect, the general growth effect and the value-glamour effect. Thereafter, other factors that can influence earnings quality are documented, from earnings manipulation to the effects of external factors on quality of earnings. The concept and measurement of economic profits are also examined. Lastly, trading strategies based on earnings quality are investigated to see if abnormal profits can be earned from such strategies.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-84). / This study investigates whether liquidity draw down requests by South African conduits will have a material financial impact on the South African banks providing such facilities. Using data on the South African conduits and the banks providing liquidity support, the impact was calculated and found to have minimal effect on the banks, concluding that the latter will be able to service liquidity draw down requests in a possible market disruption event.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / This paper provides evidence about institutional investors’ attitudes and perceptions of private equity as an investment asset class in South Africa. In South Africa this plays an important, but not dominant role in the domestic institutional portfolios, representing about a reasonable asset allocation of assets of the institutional portfolio into private equity. Using an email survey of representatives of pension funds, insurance companies, property investment and asset management companies the study analyses the attractiveness of private equity in terms of institutional investment goals. The survey examines the institutional investors’ perceptions of private equity investment, namely with respect to its total expected returns, risk diversification, economic upliftment, capital appreciation and liabilities matching.

Includes bibliographical references. / This paper aims to expand on the growing area of fund style classification and benchmarking research in developed markets by extending such analyses to the South African context. ... A differentiating feature of this study is both the style indices used and the sample of fund manager return data in the South African context. The style indices used were sourced from A-DEX, which unlike those used in Scher and Muller (2005) comprise a greater sample of JSE listed companies and are fully tradable. Furthermore, the data sample compiled by RisCura Solutions (Pty) Ltd and contains returns from a total of sixty South African institutional fund managers. ... The current study analyses one of the largest samples of institutional manager return data in the South African context.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-130). / In this dissertation we review the Sharpe Index Model and an innovation on this model introduced by Hossain, Troskie and Guo (2005b). These models are extended to the multi index framework. We then empirically investigate the impact of the models on portfolio creation over an extensive data set. Next we extend these models by modelling the regression residuals as ARMA and GARCH(l, 1) processes and investigate the effect on the resulting portfolios. We then introduce the topic of bounded influence regression and apply it to financial data by down weighting extreme returns prior to regression. A new weighting function is introduced in this dissertation and the effects on the efficient frontiers and resulting market portfolios for the chosen set of shares are investigated.

The practice of cluster management has become an integral component to the modern cluster business environment. This research develops a framework for the valuation of synergies generated by a cluster management organisation (CMO) to be used as either a method of (ex-post) management evaluation or (ex-ante) for capital budgeting purposes. The theoretical framework is synthesised from clustering and business alliance (predominantly Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and Joint Ventures (JV)), literature. The case of the South African Furniture Initiative (SAFI) was used to inform model development and to illustrate practical application of the theoretical synergy valuation model. The case study found that the synergy valuation model faces problems with practical application due to the wide variety of activities commonly associated with CMO goals and objectives. It concludes that even though a synergy framework would provide a useful tool for evaluation and capital budgeting, further research is required to develop a more accurate method of impact estimation.

Includes bibliographical references. / This research paper examines stock price reactions to the changes in cash dividend payments for mature companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). Prior South African research studies have employed the Market Model and Mean-Adjusted Return Model of event study to estimate "normal return" of the companies listed on the JSE. This study has employed the Market-Adjusted Return Model and short event window (-5, +5) to test the effect of dividend changes. The empirical results are based on 48 samples of mature companies with regular half yearly cash dividend records during the 2000- 2004 period. Using 4741 dividend change observations, it was found that the stock price reactions to increase announcements were greater than those for decrease announcements over the entire event days. It was further found that the stronger positive market reactions were associated with those announcements of larger percentage increases in dividends. These results lead to support the existence of the Dividend Signalling Hypothesis.

Includes bibliographical references. / This paper is an analysis of the South African Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) performance fee structure. The paper looks at the methods used in the calculation of performance fees and provides a detailed breakdown of their implementation in the South African CIS industry. With the aim to show and explain the various performance fee structures that are currently in place in the South African CIS market and then to highlight differences in structures between so-called "similar funds".

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-82). / Ever since Modigliani and Miller (1958) made their irrelevance proposition, financial economists have long debated the effect of corporate finance decisions: dividend, capital structure, and investment, on the value of a firm, resulting in intensive theoretical modeling and empirical examinations. The existing evidence regarding this effect is mixed. In this study the debate is extended and its impact on JSE is tested.

Asian options, also known as average value options, are exotic options whose payoffs are dependent on the average prices of the underlying assets over the life of the options. The Asian options are very popular among the market participants when dealing with thinly traded commodities because the average property of the Asian options makes it very difficult to manipulate the payoffs of the options. Another reason for the popularity of Asian options is that they are cheaper than the corresponding portfolio of standard options to hedge the same exposure. The pricing of Asian options has been the subject of continuous studies. In previous studies, Asian options have been priced based on the assumption that the underlying asset follows a geometric Brownian motion. This dissertation, however, assumes that the underlying asset follows a geometric Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process and provides an explicit formula for the geometric Asian options. The geometric Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process is more economically appropriate than the geometric Brownian motion for modelling commodity prices, exchange rates and interest rates due to its mean-reverting property.