Thesis (MDevF (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Portfolio diversification in capital markets is an accepted investment strategy. On the other hand corporate diversification has drawn many opponents especially agency theorists who argue that executives must not diversify their firms. Instead, they must pay out the ‘free cash flows’ used to make acquisitions as dividends so that shareholders can diversify on their own. The ‘conglomerate discount’ of diversified firms in stock markets confirmed this argument and compelled many firms to refocus by selling-off non-core units from the 1980s. Through a case study of Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed Delta Corporation Limited which spun-off its unrelated subsidiaries to focus on its core cold beverages business in 2001, this thesis investigates if by refocusing conglomerates improve shareholders’ returns. Using inflation adjusted share returns and factoring in risk by adopting the Sharpe index, the study results show that Delta underperformed the market and its peers as a diversified conglomerate but outperformed both benchmarks after refocusing. The study also argues that market failures in Zimbabwe, in particularly the foreign exchange and agriculture markets, compelled firms to divert from their core strategies in order to survive hyperinflation. It concludes by affirming the consensus in corporate diversification research that conglomerates are an inefficient structure for growing shareholders’ returns but may indeed be the default corporate strategy in developing economies frequently marred by market imperfections and failures.

Real estate is commonly viewed as a good diversification tool since the real estate market cycle exhibit low correlations to other asset classes. Moreover, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) have become increasingly popular in the past decades since this investment form offers private investors a convenient way of diversifying stock portfolios with real estate. Some studies investigating the within-country diversification potential of REITs and stocks have been performed. These studies generally suggest poor diversification potential. Hence, we investigate the international diversification potential of REITs from Europe, Asia Pacific and the US for private investors holding European stocks from 2007 to 2019. For Europe and Asia Pacific, REIT markets with different maturity levels are included since emerging and developed REIT markets might have different characteristics affecting the diversification potential. We also examine which market leads which in terms of changes in returns. Moreover, the diversification potential of REITs may depend on the investment horizon, hence the long- and short-run perspectives for private investors are examined. The lesson learned from the Global Financial Crises and European Debt Crisis is that abnormal market conditions may change the behavior of assets on the financial markets, and significantly affect portfolio behavior. Hence, diversification potential in relation to crises is also considered. The methods employed are Johansen’s cointegration, Granger non-causality and DCC-GARCH. Our findings suggest long- and short-run diversification potential of international REITs for European stocks. Cross-regional combinations of REITs and stocks generally offer better diversification potential than within-regional combinations, and emerging REIT markets are preferred over their developed counterparts due to lower conditional correlations. Moreover, changes in stock market returns lead changes in REIT market returns, indicating that stock markets react more quickly to new information on the market. Long- and short-run diversification potential still exists during the crises although increased conditional correlations suggest higher interdependence in this period. However, there is no trend of increasing conditional correlations over the whole sample, suggesting the abnormal market conditions during the financial turmoil did not permanently change the diversification potential of REITs in stock portfolios.

<p>This dissertation consists of two essays in international macroeconomics. In the first essay I explore the role of portfolio diversification in explaining the distribution of foreign investment across countries. I do so by adopting a portfolio allocation approach to risk, that is widely used in empirical finance, to complement more traditional analyses of foreign capital flows across countries. I capture the portfolio diversification motive by a measure of country-specific riskiness, "covariance risk", which I construct as how countries' growth rates covary with the stochastic discount factor of a representative international investor. The idea is to capture the extent to which investments in a foreign economy provide a hedge against the investor's overall risk. My key new empirical finding is a strong and significant correlation between this new measure of country riskiness and foreign investment allocations. Less risky countries, i.e countries whose growth rates are more highly correlated with the investor's stochastic discount factor, receive larger investment shares than more risky countries. I interpret this result as evidence that investors do take into account diversification opportunities not only for portfolio investment decisions but also for foreign direct investment decisions. My empirical results confirm the theoretical predictions of standard portfolio allocation models.</p><p>In the second essay I explore the business cycle regularities of low-income countries in comparison to those observed in middle- and high-income countries. The data reveals several distinguishing features of the business cycle in low-income countries compared to the other two income groups: acyclical trade balances; highest volatility of consumption relative to output; highest volatility of debt; highest average debt-to-output ratio and lowest average savings ratio; significant negative correlation between domestic saving rates and the net foreign asset position. My main finding is that a small open economy model with both trend and transitory shocks to productivity, and varying intertemporal elasticity of substitution, motivated by subsistence consumption theories, can be used to account for the distinguishing features of the three income groups. The theoretical model shows that while both permanent shocks and transitory fluctuations around the trend are important sources of fluctuations in low-income countries, temporary shocks play a predominant role. In comparison to the other two income groups the volatility of the temporary shock for the low-income countries is more than three times higher than that for the high-income group and twice as large as that for the middle-income group. The same pattern holds for the permanent shock.</p> / Dissertation

Credit derivative market has experienced an exponential growth during the last 10 years with credit default swap (CDS) as an undoubted leader within this group. CDS contract is a bilateral agreement where the seller of the financial instrument provides the buyer the right to get reimbursed in case of the default in exchange for a continuous payment expressed as a CDS spread multiplied by the notional amount of the underlying debt. Originally invented to transfer the credit risk from the risk-averse investor to that one who is more prone to take on an additional risk, recently the instrument has been actively employed by the speculators betting on the financial health of the underlying obligation. It is believed that CDS contributed to the recent turmoil on financial markets and served as a weapon of mass destruction exaggerating the systematic risk. However, the latest attempts to curb the destructive force of the credit derivative for the market by means of enhancing the regulation over the instrument, bringing it on the stock-exchange and solving the transparency issue might approve CDS in the face of investor who seeks to diminish the risk of his financial portfolio. In our thesis we provide empirical evidence of CDS ability to fulfil the diversification function in the portfolio of such credit sensitive claims as bonds and stocks. Our data for the empirical analysis consist of 12 European companies whose debt underlies the most frequently traded single-name CDS with the maturity of 5 years. Through multivariate vector autoregressive models we have tested the intertemporal relation between stock returns, CDS and bond spreads changes as well as the magnitude of this relation depending on the stock market state.   The results we have achieved for our sample are the following: 1) stock returns are mainly negatively related to the CDS and bond spread changes; 2) stock returns are the least affected by both credit spread changes, whereas changes in bond spreads are the best explained by the stock and CDS market movements; 3) the strength of the relation between three variables differs over the time: the relationship between stock returns and CDS spreads is the most dominant during the pre and post-crisis periods, while during the financial crisis time the relation between stock returns and bond spread changes as well as that of between both credit spreads comes to the foreground.   The above described relations between the three markets serve as a proof of the possibility to work out diversification strategies employing CDS. During the time of turbulence on the markets the investor may exert bigger diversification gains with the help of CDS. Thus, in spite of all the recent blame of the instrument from the investor perspective it is still remains one of the sources of profit.

vi Abstract Proper understanding of the dependence between assets is a crucial ingredient for a number of portfolio and risk management tasks. While the research in this area has been lively for decades, the recent financial crisis of 2007-2008 reminded us that we might not understand the dependence properly. This crisis served as catalyst for boosting the demand for models capturing the dependence structures. Reminded by this urgent call, literature is responding by moving to nonlinear de- pendence models resembling the dependence structures observed in the data. In my dissertation, I contribute to this surge with three papers in financial econo- metrics, focusing on nonlinear dependence in financial time series from different perspectives. I propose a new empirical model which allows capturing and forecasting the conditional time-varying joint distribution of the oil - stocks pair accurately. Em- ploying a recently proposed conditional diversification benefits measure that con- siders higher-order moments and nonlinear dependence from tail events, I docu- ment decreasing benefits from diversification over the past ten years. The diver- sification benefits implied by my empirical model are, moreover, strongly varied over time. These findings have important implications for asset allocation, as the benefits of...

This thesis will focus on the creation of a portfolio. The first part of this paper describes how to get the efficient frontier of a portfolio. The thesis explains things such as the diversification and international diversification of the portfolio. It also explains how the investor can use it for his profit. In the second part of this paper, these methods are tested and evaluated in the condition of today's globalized world.

Ethiopia is one of the poorest and most populated countries in the world. It is also one of the largest receivers of foreign aid in the world. The Borana Plateau in the Oromia region is one of the poorest regions in southern Ethiopia. The local population in this region has relied on livestock for their livelihood for many generations. The growing number of humans and livestock on the Borana Plateau has caused the rangeland to be degraded. Coupled with more frequent and severe droughts, this growth can cause the loss of a large number of the livestock in this region from time-to-time. Several scientific and social studies have been conducted regarding how to maintain more sustainable livelihoods on the Borana Plateau in the face of all of these challenges. Most of the social science literature has focused on the poor and how to build their resiliency in the face of poverty and drought. Research about poor pastoralists is very important. However, it is likely the wealthy pastoralists of the region have the greatest potential to fuel economic activity by their investment decisions. This thesis focused on an analysis of portfolio diversification and risk management by wealthy pastoralists on the Borana Plateau. The method was to choose 12 important and wealthy pastoralists to survey to obtain data for the analysis. The idea was that wealthy pastoralists have more discretionary income available to invest compared to other local people. They have large-sized cattle herds, which leads to a larger-than-average consumption of the community water and forage resources. Wealthy pastoralists can also provide employment for the local communities for milking and herding activities. Understanding the diversification strategies used by this segment of the pastoralist population also provides some insights about the diversification strategies that are available and the barriers that exist to accessing different forms of investment to allow for diversification. This type of information may help us understand how to aid more general economic development in the Borana Plateau given that investment decisions of the wealthy are relatively important compared to the general population. It is also likely true that the livestock investment decisions by wealthy pastoralists may point to the future configuration of livestock herds on the Borana Plateau. A nonlinear quadratic program was used to estimate five optimal portfolios using a mean-variance (E-V) formulation for minimizing variance. These optimal portfolios were analyzed together with the portfolios actually held by the 12 participants using risk analysis. This included using portfolio analysis, stochastic dominance, and stochastic efficiency, and estimating risk premiums for different investment alternatives. It was found that large investments in camels, savings accounts, and real estate are preferred by very risk-averse producers. A combination of cattle, camels, and savings tended to make up the portfolios of more risk-seeking participants.

Thesis (MBA (Business Management))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Private Equity is rapidly growing as an alternative asset class for investors in South Africa. Local and international literature presents overwhelming evidence to suggest that Private Equity offers superior risk-adjusted returns and portfolio diversification benefits. Private Equity managers charge quite substantial fees and investors might be concerned about the sustainability of the returns achieved by these firms. This research report addresses the question of how exactly Private Equity managers are able to achieve their superior returns. Although literature is limited and differing in opinion, several methods were identified as being used by managers to increase returns. A sample of 46 individual investments made by two Private Equity firms representing large buy-outs in South Africa was selected and analysed to quantitatively investigate the relationship between some of the identified sources of return and the Internal Rate of Return achieved on each investment. Surprisingly the relationships were not found to be as strong as expected and in many cases were not supportive of the findings in the literature. Only earnings growth and an increase in the earnings multiple had a significant impact on the IRR achieved according to the sample analysed. The author concludes that investing in Private Equity is too interdisciplinary to distil the sources of return into a few concise elements. Proprietary knowledge, expertise, superior management skills, relationships and experience all seem to play a role in providing Private Equity managers with a competitive edge over their public market counterparts. The sources identified in this report are very relevant. However, to empirically prove the individual relationship between each of those sources and the superior returns achieved by Private Equity managers remains a challenge, as their success is vested in their ability to artfully combine these methods in perpetually different combinations according to the merits of each situation. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Private Ekwiteit is besig om vinnig te groei as alternatiewe bateklas vir beleggers in Suid-Afrika. Plaaslike en internasionale literatuur bied oorweldigende bewyse wat dui daarop dat Private Ekwiteit bogemiddelde risiko-aangepaste opbrengste sowel as portefeuljediversifikasie-voordele inhou. Private Ekwiteitbestuurders hef redelike hoë fooie en beleggers mag dalk bekommerd wees oor die vermoë van hierdie maatskappye om hul bogemiddelde opbrengste vol te hou. Hierdie navorsingsverslag adresseer die vraag oor hoe presies Private Ekwiteit- bestuurders dit regkry om bogemiddelde opbrengste te realiseer. Alhoewel die beskikbare literatuur beperk is en opinies daarin vervat verskil, is daar verskeie metodes geïdentifiseer wat bestuurders gebruik om opbrengste te verhoog. `n Steekproef is gekies wat bestaan uit 46 individuele beleggings verteenwoordigend van groot uitkoop-transaksies in Suid Afrika. `n Analise is gedoen om die verhouding tussen geïdentifiseerde bronne van opbrengs en die gerealiseerde Interne Opbrengskoers op `n kwantitatiewe wyse te ondersoek. Die bevindinge was verrassend in die sin dat die verhoudings nie so sterk was soos wat verwag was nie en in baie gevalle was dit glad nie ondersteunend van die bevindinge in die literatuur nie. Slegs verdienstegroei en toename in waardasie-veelvoude het `n beduidende impak gehad op die Interne Opbrengskoers wat behaal is volgens die steekproef wat ontleed is. Die skrywer kom tot die gevolgtrekking dat 'n belegging in Private Ekwiteit te interdissiplinêr is om die bronne van opbrengs te distilleer tot `n paar spesifieke elemente. Inligting, spesialiteits-kennis, fantastiese bestuursvaardighede, persoonlike verhoudings en ervaring is alles elemente wat aan Private Ekwiteit-bestuurders `n mededingende voordeel bied. Die bronne van opbrengs wat in hierdie navorsingsverslag hanteer word, is baie relevant. Dit bly egter `n uitdaging om empiries die individuele verhoudings tussen hierdie bronne en die bogemiddelde opbrengste wat behaal word te bewys, aangesien Private Ekwiteit-bestuurders se sukses juis lê in hul vermoë om kunstig hierdie verskeie metodes te kombineer in ewig veranderende kombinasies na aanleiding van die meriete van elke geval.

The interest for sustainable funds have increased recently. ESG has become a part of companies everyday life and SRI a part of the investment strategies used by equity funds. In lack of research in the field of mutual equity funds, we choose to investigate how investment strategies in “social responsible investment” (SRI) affect the risk-adjusted return. The study investigated 51 equity funds between 2014 and 2019 that had been reporting their sustainability strategies in the so called “hållbarhetsprofilen”. From this information portfolios were constructed based on the funds strategic work in comparison to conventional funds counterparts. Carhart fourfactor model were used to calculate the risk-adjusted return, the sharpe ratio to determine return in relation to the another measure of risk and the strandarddevation to calculate the total risk in each portfolio. The study concluded that all swedish equity funds worked with combinations of several SRI strategies to implement sustainable investment. In line with previous research our results show that funds managed with a strategy of low rate exclusion show a higher risk-adjusted return compared to strategys with higher exclusion rates. The conclusion though, after statistical testing was that the results could not be proven significant between the two groups of SRI-funds, meaning that we could not prove any difference in risk-adjusted returns between the groups. Further the results showed that the total risk-exposure between SRI and conventional equity funds, due to reduced diversification was not higher in SRI funds in comparison with their conventional peers. Nor did we find any evidence for ESG-integration to dampen total risk during the time for investigation. / Intresset för hållbara fonder har ökat på senare tid. ESG har blivit en del av bolagens vardag och SRI en del av förvaltarnas strategier. Då det saknas forskning inom området på aktiefonder har vi valt att undersöka hur investeringsstrategier inom “Socially Responsible Investment” (SRI) påverkar den riskjusterade avkastningen. Studien undersökte 51 stycken aktiefonder mellan 2014 och 2019 som hade rapporterat sina hållbarhetsstrategier via den så kallade hållbarhetsprofilen. Från denna information skapades portföljer beroende på fondernas strategiska arbete som sedan jämfördes med konventionella fonder som motsvarigheter. Carhart fyrfaktormodell användes för att beräkna den riskjusterade avkastningen, sharpekvoten för att utröna avkastning i förhållande till risken och standardavvikelsen för att beräkna den totala risken i portföljen. Slutsatserna av undersökningen blev att samtliga aktiefonder arbetar med kombinationer av flera hållbarhetsstrategier för att genomföra hållbara investeringar. I linje med tidigare forskning visade resultaten även att exkludering i låg grad uppvisar en högre riskjusterad avkastning jämfört med en högre exkluderingsgrad. Detta resultatet var dock efter statistiskt test inte signifikant, vilket i sin tur genererade slutsatsen att den riskjusterade avkastningen inte påverkades av i vilken grad fonden använde sig av negativ screening. Den totala risken påverkades varken av att SRI-fonderna i jämförelse med de konventionella fonderna haft sämre möjligheter till diversifiering eller att SRI-fondernas på grund av ESG-integrering kunnat minska risken.

The main purpose of this thesis is to assess the potential of emerging stock markets and commodity markets in attracting the attention of international investors who utilize various portfolio diversification strategies to reduce the cumulative risk of their portfolio. A successful portfolio diversification strategy requires low correlation among financial markets. However, it is now well documented that the correlations among financial markets in developed countries are very high and hence the benefits of international portfolio diversification among these markets have been very limited. This fact suggests that investors should look for alternative markets whose correlations with developed markets are low (or even negative if possible) and which have high growth potentials. In this thesis, two emerging countries&#039 / stock markets and two commodity markets are considered as alternative markets. Among emerging countries, Turkey and China are chosen due to their promising growth performance since the mid-2000s. As commodity markets, agricultural commodity and precious metal markets are selected because of the outstanding performance of the former and the &quot / safe harbor&quot / property of the latter. The structures and properties of dependence between these markets and stock markets in developed countries are examined by modeling the conditional correlation in the dynamic conditional correlation framework. The results reveal that upward trend hypothesis is valid for almost all correlations among market pairs and market volatility plays significant role in time varying structures of correlations.