The increased interest in sustainability issues in recent years due to climate change has led to an increased interest among capital investors to invest more sustainably. In addition, there has been an increased interest among stakeholders, regulators and citizens to know more about the positive impact of sustainability reporting on business results. Sustainable investments are often followed by high costs, which makes it interesting from an investor perspective to investigate whether this investment can have a positive impact on a firm's financial result. Among the sectors that play a major role in sustainability investment is the real estate sector, as buildings currently account for 36 percent of CO2 emissions and 40 percent of energy consumption in the EU. Therefore, it is interesting to investigate how sustainability performance affects real estate firm performance. In this study, sustainability performance is measured using ESG scores while company performance is represented by ROA, ROE and Tobin's Q. Several regression analyses have been conducted using data from Eikon on real estate companies from 15 European countries. In addition to the overall ESG scores, the various ESG pillars were examined separately. The data analysis provides evidence of a positive significant impact of the overall ESG result on all three performance measures. Furthermore, we find that environmental disclosure has a positive impact on ROE and Tobin's Q, social disclosure has a positive effect on ROA and ROE and Governance disclosure has a positive effect on Tobin's Q. By applying these results to the shareholder- and the stakeholder theory, we can conclude that our study provides limited support for the stakeholder theory as most of our hypotheses are supported. This implies that the positive impact of sustainability investments on firm performance can lead to value creation for all stakeholders, not just the shareholders. / De senaste åren har vi sett ett ökat intresse för hållbarhetsfrågor vilket kan kopplas till klimatförändringarna. Detta har i sin tur drivit på intresset bland kapitalplacerare att investera mer hållbart. Parallellt med detta har intressenter, tillsynsmyndigheter och medborgare ökat sitt intresse för kopplingen mellan hållbarhet och finansiella resultat. Investeringar i hållbarhet medför ofta högre kostnader vilket gör det intressant ur ett investerarperspektiv att undersöka om det kan ha en positiv inverkan på ett det ekonomiska resultatet. Fastighetssektorn innehar en nyckelroll i omställningen till ett mer hållbart samhälle då byggnader ansvarar för 36 procent av CO2-utsläppen och 40 procent av energiförbrukningen inom EU. Givet denna nyckelroll och det kostsamma arbete som ligger framför fastighetssektorn är det således intressant att undersöka hur hållbarhetsarbete påverkar fastighetsbolagens finansiella resultat. I denna studie mäts fastighetsbolagens prestationer inom hållbarhet med hjälp av ESG-poängmedan det finansiella resultatet representeras av ROA, ROE och Tobins Q. Flertalet regressionsanalyser har utförts på data hämtad från databasen Eikon. Urvalet består av 111 fastighetsbolag från 15 olika länder inom Europa. Utöver den övergripande ESG-poängen undersöktes även de olika ESG-pelarna separat. Dataanalysen visar på en positiv signifikant inverkan av det övergripande ESG-resultatet på alla tre prestationsmätningar ROA, ROE och Tobin’s Q. Vidare finner vi att miljöpelaren (E) har en positiv inverkan på ROE och Tobins Q, den sociala pelaren (S) har en positiv effekt på ROA och ROE och ägarstyrning (G) har en positiv effekt på Tobins Q. Genom att analysera dessa resultat med hjälp av aktieägar- och intressentteorin kan vi dra slutsatsen att vår studie ger begränsat stöd för intressentteorin då en majoritet av våra hypoteser stöds. Detta betyder att investeringar i hållbarhet kan resultera i värdeskapande för fler intressenter än enbart aktieägarna.

Using a sample of 678 property portfolio changes (acquisitions, dispositions and joint ventures) of U.S. REITs during the period 1990 to 2009, I investigate the issue of what drives the property sector focus of REITs. Geltner and Miller (2001) argue that investors prefer to make their own diversification decisions using narrowly focused REITs as an explanation for the lack of diversification. On the basis of their argument, I develop and examine the research question of how investors react to a change in a REIT’s property type focus. I find a significantly negative market reaction to acquisition and acquisitional JV events that decrease property-type focus. However, I do not find consistent supporting evidence that dispositional events, including property sales and dispositional JVs which increase property-type focus, yield significantly positive abnormal returns. Only in the limited case of other property-type dispositional JVs do I find a statistically significant positive market reaction relative to those derived from the dispositional events that do not change the property-type focus on the basis of a difference test. In terms of the results of cross-sectional OLS regressions, I also find strong evidence of a diversification discount derived from acquisitional events that decrease the property-type focus of a REIT regardless of the sample period and the type of property portfolio change. However, I do not find evidence of a wealth benefit received by dispositional events which increase the property-type focus. In addition, I find that the deal size of the property portfolio change relative to the size of the firm and the number of security analysts following the firm are both significant variables that affect the abnormal returns upon the announcement of a property portfolio change. I also find no evidence to support the idea that the diversification discount comes from endogeneity as argued by Villanova (2004).

To the best of my knowledge, there has not been any academic study about capital structure of Turkish REITs so far. This study attempts to fulfill this gap in the literature by analyzing the capital structure choices of Turkish REITs which are listed in Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) over the period of 1998 - 2007. The key contribution of this study is to understand whether the firm specific, institutional and country specific factors that affect the capital structures of all institutional firms including REITs in developed and developing countries are also applicable to the Turkish REITs sector. The data analysis demonstrates that Turkish REITs employ little long term debt in their capital structure and there exists strong short term debt dominance in the sector. Employing Tobit regression and panel data models, it is concluded that capital structure determinants that are significant in developed and developing countries are also significant in Turkish REITs&amp / #8217 / debt financing choices. However, we observe inconsistency in the sign and significance of some factors which give a way to understand the different institutional and country specific factors of Turkish real estate market and Turkish REITs.

This study investigates the time varying behavior of the betas (systematic risk) for the Turkish REIT sector in an attempt to identify whether the betas for the Turkish REITs are stable and if not whether the declining trend valid for the REIT betas of many developed and developing countries is also observed for the Turkish REITs. Three different techniques / namely, Diagonal BEKK (DBEKK) GARCH model, the Schwert and Seguin model and the Kalman Filter algorithm, are employed in order to estimate and analyze the time varying betas of the Turkish REIT sector over the period 2002-2009. The empirical results suggest that, similar to many other countries, betas are not stable in the Turkish REIT sector. The general view of a declining beta trend for the REITs appears to prevail for Turkish REITs as well, reinforcing the defensive characteristics of these publicly traded real estate companies. Comparing the relative forecast accuracy of the three techniques employed, Schwert and Seguin model performs the worst both for weekly and daily data / whereas the Kalman Filter and the DBEKK Garch models provide the lowest forecast errors for the weekly and the daily data, respectively. This study also shows that the use of the data sets with different frequency could lead to different empirical findings.

國內不動產投資信託發行至今已屆兩年，從各檔REITs上市造成大量的超額認購的盛況顯示，REITs顯然將成為一項重要的投資工具。但國內缺乏市場實際表現的討論，因此本研究針對國內施行狀況進行研究。在各檔績效表現方面，以富邦二號表現較佳，三鼎與基泰之星之表現則略顯較差，而且各檔REITs均無顯著的股價蜜月期。在整體REITs市場方面，透過T-REITs指數的建立與指數走勢，得知目前國內REITs整體呈上升的趨勢；而於流通情況方面大致在新REITs上市當日，有相對較高的成交量之外，整體而言國內REITs週轉率明顯低於大盤與營建股；在報酬與風險方面，顯示T-REITs是具有低風險、穩定報酬特性的投資標的。 本文檢驗T-REITs加入投資組合之可行性，由相關係數分析得知，T-REITs相較於其他股票提供較佳的避險能力，是具有對抗通貨膨脹與利率變動之規避風險功用的投資工具，且T-REITs與其他股票走勢的相關性低，乃是分散投資組合風險的有效途徑。另外，由共整合檢定結果顯示，T-REITs指數與大盤指數以及T-REITs與營建股價指數之間，均無共整合之均衡關係存在，表示投資人可達到投資分散風險之目的。整體而言，國內REITs是一項值得加入投資組合的商品。 / T-REITs has been launched for two years, and the oversubscribtion of all REITs demonstrates that T-REITs has become an important investment instrument. But due to the lack of study on the market performance in the domestic area, therefore derives the necessity of relative research. We find that Fubon No. 2 REIT REIT is better than the others, and none of the REITs have honeymoon period. Through the establishment of T-REITs index, we discover that T-REITs has been trending up; the turnover rates are relatively higher when T-REITs first goes public, but significantly lower than that of market index and property stocks overall. Moreover, our findings indicate that T-REITs is an investment instrument which provides stabile return at a low risk. In this study, We investigate if T-REITs is capable of hedging. From the correlation analysis, we discover that T-REITs provides a better hedge over other stocks as an investment instrument, which is effective against inflation and variation of interest rates. And also, the cointergration test shows that T-REITs, market index and property stocks are not cointergrated, suggesting that markets tend to behave differently during the time of our observation; hense the investment portfolio shares the benefit of diversification by including REITs, therefore worthy of investment.

This dissertation addresses issues in corporate finance. Part I examines the litigation environment of a firm and its impact on financial policy. Chapter 1 discusses prior research, including theory and empirical results, related to firm performance, financial policy, and litigation. It provides the background to support the empirical analyses of Chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 examines the wealth effects of litigation events on the firms involved, as well as on their industry peers. I find that litigation events have a strong negative effect on both the firms sued, as well as their competitors. Chapter 3 examines whether managers use financial policy strategically when facing an increased risk of litigation claims. I find that greater litigation exposure leads firms to choose higher leverage. I show that this leverage increase is brought on by an active decision to repurchase shares. These repurchases appear to be financed with a combination of excess cash and short term debt as they coincide with a significant decrease in cash holdings and an increase in short term liabilities. These firms also increase their use of operating leases, which, due to their priority in bankruptcy, have similar characteristics as secured debt. Finally, the effects seem to be stronger for firms with a higher probability of bankruptcy. Part II asks whether there is a disposition effect in corporate investment decisions. Chapter 4 provides a summary of the existing literature related to the disposition effect and discusses both theoretical and empirical findings. In Chapter 5, I utilize the unique nature of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) to test for the presence of the disposition effect in corporate investments. The results show strong statistical evidence that REIT managers tend to sell winners and hold losers, where winners and losers are defined using changes in properties’ prices since they were acquired. In addition, I find evidence that this behavior is consistent with the disposition effect. REIT managers are significantly less likely to sell properties that have a loss relative to a reference point based on inflation or historical average returns, controlling for the properties’ recent returns. / text

Investing in real estate funds presents relatively high stability of yields and that's why it is very interesting option for risk diversification in investment portfolio. The real estate funds offer the option how to invest with a less value of own capital. The diploma thesis should present information about the progress of real estate funds in the Czech Republic and of course show the development in other advanced countries.

Nowadays, the skyrocket price of residential house due to lack of houses in cities becomes a crucial problem in China. The development of commercial real estate industry is not only an emerging real estate industry, but also plays a mediating role in solving the problem of lack of houses and high-price to some extent, as a mature commercial real estate market in the city gives birth to a core business centre in the downtown and many sub-business areas in different districts in the city. It is able to create jobs in different areas and to spread the population more averagely. Instead of gathering everybody in the centre, it is going to solve the problem of imbalance of supply and demand for houses and the high price in some areas, which is especially important for the big cities in China like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. This thesis is going to explore some new financing options for the small and medium-sized commercial real estate developers and provide some suggestions accordingly. Financing options like REITs, real estate fund, CBMS and mezzanine financing are discussed. In addition, taking Guangzhou, one of the first-tier cities in China, as a case study we have gained a further understanding of the real financing problems in commercial real estate. Some suggestions on the financing options of small and medium commercial real estate developers are proposed according to the academic and practical experiences.

台灣不動產投資信託(T-REIT)自2005年發行至今已逾四年，過去國內相關的文獻多集中於法律面、制度架構及問卷調查等相關研究，對於整體市場實際表現的討論則較缺乏。隨著交易歷史資料的延展，本研究針對國內REITs施行的現況與總體經濟波動及不動產市場之關係進行討論。在總體經濟部分以股價指數、利率與通貨膨脹進行分析，在不動產市場部分則採用辦公室平均租金水準與實際商辦交易價格為指標，期望探索T-REITs價格與總體經濟及不動產市場間之長期關係。 本文發現T-REITs與股價指數、商辦租金以及商辦交易價格間，均會存在長期均衡關係，即有共整合情形，而T-REITs與通貨膨脹率以及T-REITs與利率間不具有長期均衡關係，且股價指數、商辦租金以及通貨膨脹率與T-REITs為正向關係，利率及商辦租金與T-REITs則為反向關係。此外，根據因果關係檢定，股價指數與通貨膨脹率皆領先T-REITs，而商辦租金與T-REITs為雙向回饋。本文結果顯示，台灣REITs與總體經濟及商用不動產市場具有長期均衡關係，亦即總體經濟的變動以及不動產市場的波動可做為探討T-REITs長期變化的指標。 / Taiwan launched the first Real Estate Investment Trusts (T-REITs) in 2005. However, over the past few years, studies regarding T-REITs mainly focused on legal system, institutional framework and questionnaire surveys, but lack of empirical analysis on the performance of T-REIT markets. This study therefore intends to explore the cointegration and causality relationship among the T-REITs, macroeconomy and commercial real estate markets. The macroeconomic factors in this study include the stock prices, interest rate and inflation rate; and the real estate variables include the commercial rents and commercial prices. Empirical results first demonstrate that there exists the long-run relationship among T-REITs, stock prices, commercial rents and commercial prices, but not the interest rate or inflation rate. Moreover, T-REITs are significantly related to stock prices, interest rate and inflation rates as well as commercial rents and commercial prices. Third, the changes of stock prices and inflation rate lead the change of T-REITs. Finally, there is a significant feedback relationship between T-REITs and commercial rents.

No description available.