Includes bibliographica references (leaves 107-114). / The aim of this research was to establish whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects a company's image by researching stakeholders' views on the CSR of an unlisted company operating in South Africa. Stakeholders of the organisation were identified and questionnaires were sent to Board members, management, employees, suppliers and customers. The results of the questionnaires were analysed to establish stakeholders' views of CSR and the implications thereof. The research provided insights into stakeholders' views on CSR and highlighted the significance of CSR to companies

Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation examines overconfidence in an investing environment to determine if there is evidence of the phenomenon amongst a sample of academics at participating universities. A survey was sent out to over 6 000 staff members at four South African universities assessing respondents’ ability to estimate their return earned in unit trusts in which they were invested, as well as assessing whether they would adjust their estimate when presented with an anchor (the relevant JSE All Share Index return). 466 completed responses were obtained, of which 81 respondents indicated that they were invested directly in a South African equity unit trust to allow for statistical testing. The data obtained were analysed for evidence of overconfidence and anchoring by comparing respondents’ estimates of fund returns against historical returns and then checking whether they adjusted their estimate after being presented with an anchor. It was found that investors were under-confident rather than overconfident with women giving lower, and thus more under-confident estimates than their male counterparts. Furthermore, it was found that older respondents were better able to estimate their past returns than younger respondents. The presence of an anchor appeared to have no effect on respondents’ estimates.

The Overreaction Hypothesis and share price overreaction has been a widely researched phenomenon since the 1980s, although most work has focused on longer-term share return reversals. As an emerging market and part of the BRICS collective, South Africa provides an interesting investment environment within which to investigate this phenomenon. Limited research has been done in South Africa on share price overreaction, again nearly all focusing on the longer term. This dissertation examined short term overreaction (over 1 and 5-day periods) on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) over the period July 2000 to June 2015. Furthermore, periods of financial crisis were isolated from the full sample period and tested separately, in order to assess whether periods of financial instability affect the magnitude of share price overreaction on the JSE. Whereas the common approach in this field is to investigate overreaction on a relative basis (for example by ranking share returns over a prior period and focusing on extreme relative performances), this thesis follows other literature that examines share return reversals following extreme one-day share price changes beyond absolute cut-off values (in this case ±5% and ±10%). The methodology considered an abnormal returns measure based on total return index values, and used a multivariate regression to test for one day and five day share return reversals. The effect of average prior returns, market volatility, company size, value, price-to-earnings and book-to-market ratios on abnormal returns were also considered. Lastly, a portfolio strategy based on one day and five day return reversals following large positive or negative one-day returns was investigated to test for usability as a possible trading strategy.

The aim of this paper is to look at derivative usage in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe and contrast the findings to surveys done of other countries. There is no evidence of similar studies done on small sub Saharan African countries, so there is no specific literature driven expectations based outcome. One can however draw logical expectations regarding the findings based on the homogenous characteristics of smaller countries (and markets) in the rest of the world and similar studies done on those countries.

Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation analyses the influence of liquidity on the profitability of South African listed firms between 2000 and 2009. The importance of this paper is to assess whether South African firms will improve profitability by managing liquidity efficiently. We used data from past published results of 120 JSE listed firms. The findings from the study suggest that there exists a negative relationship between profitability and liquidity as measured by the cash conversion cycle. Furthermore, efficient liquidity management improves return to shareholders by reducing time taken from the moment that creditors/suppliers are paid until the moment cash is collected from customers/debtors.

This study examines the co-movements of selected African stock exchanges, including Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt and South Africa, as well as the USA, in local currency and in USDt erms, for the period January 2004 to June 2014. The study sheds light on African market cointegration before, during, and post the financial crises of 2007/2008 to identify whether there are benefits to diversification in stock exchanges across Africa and how this has changed over time. Only the four biggest exchanges are examined, to eliminate the effects of illiquidity and ensuring the size of indices used result in conclusions that are practical to investors. This study looks at short and long term relationships using correlation, cointegration, and the direction of the relationships using causality tests. It finds low correlations between all African exchanges and the USA, with the exception of South Africa, which did show significant correlation with the USA. We find no consistent cointegration relationships over the periods tested. There are no consistent causality relationships between the various countries. The implication of these results are that there are likely benefits to diversification across the four African exchanges examined.

This study investigates whether the shareholder, stakeholder and customer-oriented theories on the objective of the firm are reflected in modern financial textbooks, and in the Mission, Vision, and Values statements of the JSE TOP40 firms. The literature review discusses the shareholder, stakeholder and customer-oriented theories of the firm, among others, and shows that there is no consensus between finance researchers on the objective of the firm, with opposing views presented. The research approach adopts qualitative analysis as the method for this study, as it is deemed to be suitable for pattern recognition in large sets of data. The data consisted of twenty financial textbooks, and the MVV statements of the JSE TOP40 firms. Both the data sets were analysed to identify the shareholder, stakeholder and customer-oriented objectives of the firm using the word frequency and coding queries in software NVivo. The finding in respect of financial textbooks indicates that seventeen textbooks advocated for a shareholder objective, two advocated for a stakeholder, and one for a customer-oriented objective of the firm. The JSE TOP40 firms' finding indicates that seventeen pursued a stakeholder objective, twelve pursued a customer-oriented objective, and eleven pursued a shareholder objective. The study establishes that the shareholder, stakeholder and customer-oriented theories of the firm's objective are reflected better in the MVV statements of JSE TOP40 firms, than in financial textbooks. This highlights a disconnection between financial textbooks, where the shareholder objective of the firm was found to be dominant, and the JSE TOP40 firms' findings where the debate concerning the three objectives was more evenly spread. This study recommends that South African academic authors should update their financial textbooks to reflect more emphasis on the stakeholder and customer-oriented theories of the firm's objectives, as being pursued by the JSE TOP40 firms.

This study investigates the characteristics of project finance transactions and establishes the cost determinants for non-recourse project finance in Africa within the energy, oil and gas, mining and infrastructure sectors. Essentially, this thesis will be investigating what the main cost determinants are which lenders use to price the risk in project finance transactions. Project finance risks such as market, operational, sponsor, political / regulatory and environmental risks are investigated. A loan transaction database is used to fit these risks to determine the relevant loan parameters available in the database, employing a regression model is used to obtain which loan parameters, and, in turn, risks, lenders price into the cost of the loans. The database represents non-recourse project finance transactions throughout Africa from 1995 to 2015 and was filtered down 89 loan entries that contained the most important loan parameters. Empirical results suggest that secured loans are priced in a different category to unsecured loans, increasing the All-In credit-spread by 196.94 bps (P-value < 0.1%) if the loan parameter is moved from an unsecured to a secured loan. Political / regulatory risk, which had a 27.697 bps increase in the All-in Credit-spread (P-value < 2.3%). This can be attributed to being a result of a country's risk ranking, which was found to be the most significant pricing determinant for non-recourse loans on the African continent.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / This study examined the performance 60 initial public offerings listing on the JSE main board between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2011. Significant underpricing of 10.1% and 8.5% was found to exist on the first day and during first week subsequent to the IPO. Underperformance of 14.17% was found using abnormal returns and 12.91% underperformance was found when holding period returns were calculated one year after the IPO.

This study aims to address the empirical question of whether macroeconomic variables drive future stock market returns in South Africa. If found, the macroeconomic variables would therefore constitute useful predictive information for the future FTSE/JSE All Share Index. The data was examined from 1965 to 2010 which constitutes the longest study of its nature in South Africa. The macroeconomic variables were selected based on international and local precedent of intuitive influential macroeconomic factors. Through the use of Johansen multivariate cointegration, Granger causality and innovation accounting, it was found that the selected South African macroeconomic variables did not significantly influence future FTSE/JSE All Share Index returns. Therefore the chosen macroeconomic variables should not be used as a future predictive tool for South African stock market returns.