The primary goal of a publicly traded company is to maximise the wealth of its shareholders. This implies that the management of the firm, as agents of the owners, has to manage the firm in such a manner as to create value from every decision taken. Value-based management (VBM) is a management strategy aimed at achieving shareholder wealth creation and is based on the effective management of a set of internal value drivers to maximise wealth creation. The primary objective of the current study is to investigate the quantification of the relationship between internal value drivers and shareholder wealth creation in the Mining sector of JSE listed companies in South Africa. In order to achieve this, the internal value drivers were identified from literature, the necessary financial data was collected and the value drivers as well as actual shareholder wealth were quantified. Revenue growth, operating profitability, capital requirements and weighted average cost of capital (WACC) were identified as the value drivers while total shareholder return (TSR) was identified as the actual shareholder wealth creator. For the purpose of the current study, WACC was excluded from the analysis. By application of linear regression, it was found that revenue growth and operating profitability have a positive, statistically significant effect of TSR. After analysing the effect size, it is however concluded that the effect is not practically significant. These findings concur with similar research in the field of VBM. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

The primary goal of a publicly traded company is to maximise the wealth of its shareholders. This implies that the management of the firm, as agents of the owners, has to manage the firm in such a manner as to create value from every decision taken. Value-based management (VBM) is a management strategy aimed at achieving shareholder wealth creation and is based on the effective management of a set of internal value drivers to maximise wealth creation. The primary objective of the current study is to investigate the quantification of the relationship between internal value drivers and shareholder wealth creation in the Mining sector of JSE listed companies in South Africa. In order to achieve this, the internal value drivers were identified from literature, the necessary financial data was collected and the value drivers as well as actual shareholder wealth were quantified. Revenue growth, operating profitability, capital requirements and weighted average cost of capital (WACC) were identified as the value drivers while total shareholder return (TSR) was identified as the actual shareholder wealth creator. For the purpose of the current study, WACC was excluded from the analysis. By application of linear regression, it was found that revenue growth and operating profitability have a positive, statistically significant effect of TSR. After analysing the effect size, it is however concluded that the effect is not practically significant. These findings concur with similar research in the field of VBM. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

Mergers and acquisitions are a key component in the toolbox of business strategies that companies employ to improve organisational performance. Empirical studies that focus on domestic mergers and acquisitions activity in developed countries are numerous, however there remains a limited amount of research into the effects of cross border mergers and acquisitions on the performance of acquiring companies, especially in emerging markets. This research examined whether cross border mergers and acquisitions concluded by acquiring companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange have a positive or negative impact on the operating financial and short term share price performance of the listed acquirer. A quantitative approach was adopted for the purpose of this research. In order to analyse the impact of cross border mergers and acquisitions transactions on the share price and operating financial performance of listed acquiring firms secondary data was utilised. The research incorporated publicly available daily share trading data for shares traded on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and financial and accounting data sourced from McGregorBFA. In addition, the sample of cross border mergers and acquisitions transactions was obtained from the MergerMarket database. Purposive sampling was applied to select an initial sample of 44 transactions. Based on the exclusion of confounding events a final sample of 29 transactions was tested. Given the small sample size, and that confounding events were determined not to have a material impact on the cross border transactions, comparative analysis was performed using the initial sample of 44 transactions. Different lenses were applied for testing financial performance by using three performance measures. These included abnormal share price returns; key financial performance ratios and industry adjusted operating cash flow return on assets. Various short-term event windows were analysed for each of these measures. Parametric tests including t-tests for unequal variance and paired t-tests were applied in the research. Given the small sample size non-parametric testing in the form of Wilcoxon Signed Rank Sum tests was also applied. In addition, bootstrapping was applied to the cumulative average abnormal returns. This research concluded that both the short-term share price and operating financial performance of acquiring companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange does not improve significantly in the short-term post the cross border merger or acquisition transaction. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / lmgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

M.Com. (Financial Management) / In 1995, the South African government needed to address the widening poverty gap. The manner in which they would do so was through the process of financial market liberalisation of the JSE. The intention behind the process of financial liberalisation on the JSE was to increase the liquidity of the JSE. The significance of this study is that it would provide regulators of financial markets, policy makers and academics information on the effectiveness of the liberalisation of the JSE on dual listed companies’ ability to grow in a sustainable manner. Previous literature has found the risk sharing benefit associated with financial market liberalisation. With the increased number of participants in market would increase the chance of successful trades. Previous studies have found that there is a positive correlation with financial market liberalisation and market liquidity. Exchange controls have been put in place to prevent capital flight in sudden economic down turns. Certain studies have found that financial market liberalisation on has had minimal impact on the market capitalisation This study investigates the effects the financial liberalisation on the JSE had on dual listed companies’ sustainable growth rates. A purposive sampling technique was used in this study and a sample of 28 dual listed companies was selected. The approach to this study was an explanatory approach and the research paradigm was archival. The statistical tools which were utilised in the study were broken into two components, namely, the descriptive statistics and the inferential statistics. The data that were used in the study were secondary data collected from I-Net Bridge. The results of this study indicated that the financial liberalisation of the JSE did have an impact on the sustainable growth rates of dual listed companies on the JSE. Recommendations were made in this study for the dual listed companies to improve their net profit margins. The methods in which the dual listed companies are able to improve their net profit margins are by finding competitive sustainable advantages. It was further recommended that the Income Tax Act No. 58 of 1962 needs to be amended to create a conducive economic environment for the dual listed companies to grow sustainably. It was further recommended that the dual listed companies on the JSE invest in human capital in order to improve their sustainable growth rate.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / This study examines the relationship between stock returns and market segmentation. Monthly returns of stocks listed on the JSE from 1997-2007 are analysed using mostly the analytic factor and cluster analysis techniques. Evidence supporting the use of multi-index models in explaining the return generating process on the JSE is found. The results provide additional support for Van Rensburg (1997)'s hypothesis on market segmentation on the JSE.

No abstract available. Copyright / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Accounting / unrestricted

Magister Commercii - MCom / Since the listing of the Satrix 40 in November 2000, Exchange Traded Fund (ETFs) have grown to become an investment vehicle of choice amongst retail and institutional investors of the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE). Albeit gaining such an enormous traction, investors' remains curious about ETFs ability to successfully replicate the movements of their target benchmark indices and also their capability to yield arbitrage profit opportunity through mispricing. In addition to that, investors are also interested to know whether ETFs as an index tracking investment vehicle are resilient in variously cycles of the economy. Motivated by this gap in the body of knowledge, this research undertakes to evaluate the tracking ability and pricing efficiency of 19 ETFs listed on the JSE over various cycles of the economy. According to Faulkner, Loewald and Makrelov (2013) South African economy experienced the effect of the 2008 global financial crisis between 1 September 2008 and 30 June 2009. For that reason, the examination period of this research is segmented into four main categories namely: full examination period which spans from the launch date of each of the ETF under review until 30 September 2015, pre-crisis period that is between the launch date and 29August 2008, crisis-period dated 1 September 2008 and 30 June 2009 and the post-crisis or the recovery phase being 1 July 2009 through 30 September 2015. The tracking ability results across all the sub-periods suggested that, on average, ETFs yields daily returns which closely resemble that of their target benchmark indices but with relatively high level of volatility. With regard to the tracking error as another tracking ability measurement, it was discovered that the ETFs under review were inadequately replicating the movements of their target benchmark indices irrespective of the economic cycle. In tandem with the evidence documented by Mateus and Rahmani (2014) from the London Stock Exchange (LSE), tracking errors were substantially high during the 2008 global financial crisis as opposed to the prior and the post crisis period. Across all the examination periods, sizeable amount of tracking error was found to be associated to the ETFs which mimics the international broad-market access underlying indices. Amongst other things, the diversity of these indices as well as the trading hours overlap between the JSE and their host market were found to be the key attributing factors. On the contrary, ETFs which replicates most liquid target benchmark indices such as the FTSE/JSE Top 40 index appeared to have lower tracking error on relative basis. In this regard, the liquidity of the FTSE/JSE Top 40 index proved to be the main attribute. Apart from the diversity or the liquidity of indices, the length of the examination period also had a significant influence towards the magnitude of tracking errors. In this instance, shorter examination period were found to be characterised by noise or volatility in the market which makes it difficult for the ETFs providers to promptly rebalance their portfolios and align them to their target benchmark indices. Over and above these factors, this research discovered that tracking errors across all the sub-periods were largely driven by management fees and daily volatility of the ETFs market prices, more especially during the crisis period. On the one hand, trading volume and the effect of dividends distribution had a negative influence towards the magnitude of tracking errors. On the question of how efficient these 19 ETFs are, the empirical findings revealed that significant deviation between the ETFs closing price and the Net Asset Value (NAV) does exist either being a discount or premium. In line with the prior work on the JSE by Charteris (2013), ETFs which mimics local based indices were found to be trading mostly on a discount to the NAV whilst the opposite was true in the case of the international broad-market access ETFs. At the same token, international broad-market access ETFs portrayed sizeable amount of premiums across all the cycles of the economy. In line with the analysis of tracking errors, such enormous premiums were mainly driven by lack of synchronicity in the trading hours between the JSE and host market wherein these ETFs target benchmark indices are listed. Empirical literature suggests that ETFs that exhibit discount and premium which fails to persist for more than one trading day are deemed to be efficiently priced since there is limited opportunity to arbitrage. On that note, this research found that mispricing of ETFs which mimics most liquid indices such as the domestic broad-market access and sectorial indices disappears within a period of one trading day. For that reason, majority of these ETFs were considered to be efficiently priced against their NAV. Contrarily, discounts and premiums exhibited by ETFs which mostly replicate style based and the international broad-market access indices appeared to be persistent even to the fifth trading day. From the attribution point of view, the complexity of these ETFs underlying indices as well as the trading hours overlap between the JSE and the host market of these indices were found to be the main drivers of such level of mispricing. In addition to that, attribution analysis through linear regression proved that transaction cost (bid-ask spread), daily volatility of the ETFs market prices as well as the impact of trading volume had a positive influence towards the existence of discounts and premiums observed across all sub-periods.

This research evaluates the impact of job satisfaction on the share price of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). Current HRM theory stipulates that job satisfaction can improve retention and employee motivation leading to accrued benefits for the shareholder (Edmans, 2011). In addition over the last few years, studies have shown the JSE to be inefficient as it does not react rapidly by setting its share price when provided with new qualitative news. This research was conducted as a longitudinal study of the relationship between job satisfaction and shareholder returns. This was done through a quantitative approach using a combination of an event based and style research methodology. The results of this research confirms HRM theory that positive benefits accrued from investing in job satisfaction outweigh the cost. This is shown via a 4.1% pa return over an equal weighted index in the period 2008-2014. In addition the JSE was also shown to be inefficient, as the companies listed on the top employers were still obtaining abnormal returns 59 days after the announcement. The findings of this study thus provide valuable information to traders on the JSE on the returns of listed companies that invest in job satisfaction. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / zkgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / Unrestricted

Various equity investment styles have been developed and documented extensively in recent history – these styles have, in certain cases, outperformed the broader market. Muller and Ward (2013) have done extensive research into the efficiency of various equity styles on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), and made a meaningful contribution to the topic in the South Africa arena by using a sophisticated style engine and good quality data to prove the effectiveness of certain styles in outperforming the JSE All Share Index. This research builds on Muller and Ward’s methodology by combining the style-based investment approach with the concept of portfolio insurance, using synthetic replication of a put option over the style-based portfolio to provide protection. We found that the application of synthetic portfolio insurance is effective in lessening the effect of market downturns, and that optimising the desired level and time period of protection can lead to outperformance of the unprotected style-based portfolio as the implied cost of the synthetic option is negated by the avoidance of large downturns in the market. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / zkgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / Unrestricted

The South African government introduced the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) as an intervention to resolve economic imbalances. In furthering inclusivity in the previously exclusive sectors, like Mining, the BEE legislations and Mining Charter were introduced to benefit the HDSA. The study addressed a significant gap in BEE research, which is important within the South African context, as the country currently reviews progress after the initial 20 years of democratic dispensation. The research examined the share price performance of mining stocks listed on the JSE by tracking their share price performance after announcements relating to black empowerment transactions. The objectives of the research were to, first, determine whether announcements of BEE transactions lead to better shareholder wealth creation in the South African mining sector, second, to determine the impact of these announcements on Old and BEE mining companies that were listed on the JSE post- 1994, third, to determine whether the early BEE announcements made before the release of the Mining Charter in September 2010 had a greater positive impact on the Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CARs) of Mining companies compared to those made after the amendment to legislation. The research employed an event study methodology to analyse a sample of 26 mining companies that made a total of 241 qualifying announcements from January 2000 to November 2014. The results of the study showed negative impact on the CARs of the mining companies. It was noted that the old mining companies that existed before 1994 had better average abnormal return than the BEE companies. Further, the results showed that the Average Abnormal Returns (AARs) of the BEE announcements made prior to the Mining Charter had greater AARs than those made after the implementation. In sum, the BEE announcements had largely a negative impact on share performance of the mining companies. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lmgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / Unrestricted