Scania’s discount rate - the return requirement of investments - refers to Scania’s WACC or weighted average cost of capital. The capital markets return requirement on equity and the credit market interest cost of borrowing is weighted to become the single discount rate, the WACC. The purpose of this study is to investigate which asset pricing model of APT and CAPM Scania should use in their WACC calculations. The company now uses a group WACC of 11 percent which is used in all company levels. The problem with this is that investments in low-risk markets will be discounted by the same factor as high-risk markets, which can result in a misleading NPV. The objective is to create a differentiated WACC which gives an opportunity to compare investments with different risk profiles. The study proposes the best fitting model, given by evaluating APT and CAPM in a Scania context. To achieve a differentiated WACC a new method is created, The JCJ-Method. The method uses an industry index as a benchmark of Scania. The results indicate that APT is the better model for Scania in the differentiating context. / Carl-Johan Peel

Bank has always played an important role as capital saving and supply and demand of expenditure since long time ago in the whole financial,and it has become an essential part of our financial system.However,because of the 1997 Asia financial crisis and 2008 financial storm all over the world,the structure of domestic banks has shown bad operation quality situation under the over-competitive environment,also,the profitability and asset quality are decreasing year by year. Along with the similarity of financial products,the segment among financial practices is blurring,it can has the multiple operation effect to meet the diversified demands of customers only by the merge of industry and cross-industry integration to operate in different industry.At this time,to encourage local banks to operate in different industry and encourage financial industry to cooperate via strategic alliance,it can help to enhance competency and improve the dilemma of financial institution. 1991 is the important divide for the financial industry.The ministry of finance gave green light to the erection of sixteen banks,the lack of new practices and finance creativity,plus the effects of financial institution are confined to traditional industry,stock market,the depression of house market,the capital outflow,and the evil competitive of finance industry let the finance market decreasing,lead to the non-performing loan of banks is increasing and return on equity is decreasing.Over the past ten years,bank's interest rate spread decreased from 3% to 1% recently.The local banks,franchising guaranteed industry,1046 branches in 1991 increased to 2411 branches in 2000 and 3155 branches in 2009,if includes foreign banks' branches in Taiwan,medium and small size business banks,credit union of farmer's and fisherman's associate,Chunghwa Post Co.,the branches can up to 5973,on average,one bank can only has 3850 customers out of 23 million people in Taiwan,let the industry become red sea.After the financial storm,governments all over the world emphasize on suppressing market rate, plus the defrost of the relationship between Taiwan and China,the conclusion and sign of MOU,negotiation of ECFA,all let the difference among financial institutions decreasing,and more and more financial institutions operate in different industry,for those local financial institution not belonged to financial holding companies,it's critical for them to figure out how to create their own operating advantage. In terms of this, under the never-end competitive environment, this study got the following conclusion, economic of scale has effects on bank industry, but after the on-site interview on local banks' operating effects, do research on the main factors of banks, not only the external environment effects the profitability of branches, but manager's operation of individual project and the copy of success model, to erect cross-region local bank's optimal operating model. It has benefits on bank's overall effects¡Fthe comparative advantages can create higher value for it under the depression.

Este trabalho visa identificar possíveis vantagens que as empresas obtêm ao contribuir com campanhas políticas. Para isso, foi utilizada uma extensa base de dados com informações de doações a candidatos aos cargos de deputado, senador e presidente nas eleições de 2006 e 2010. As variáveis de interesse analisadas foram o retorno anormal cumulativo à época da divulgação do resultado das eleições e o retorno sobre o patrimônio líquido no ano posterior a cada eleição. Foram estimadas regressões de dados em painel através de mínimos quadrados ordinários, e incluídos efeitos fixos de ano e setor das empresas. Os resultados indicam que não apenas o mercado antecipa benefícios futuros para as empresas que contribuíram com campanhas – o que se reflete em retornos anormais cumulativos positivos à época da eleição – mas também estas empresas apresentam retornos sobre o patrimônio líquido superiores aos daquelas que não participaram do processo político. Além disso, doações a candidatos vencedores geram retorno superior aos de doações a candidatos perdedores; o que vai ao encontro da hipótese de retribuição de favores. De forma similar, contribuições a candidatos filiados à coligação do presidente eleito também apresentaram impacto superior quando comparadas com doações a candidatos da oposição. / This paper aims to identify potential benefits that companies obtain by contributing to political campaigns. We used an extensive database with information on donations to House, Senate and Presidency candidates in the 2006 and 2010 elections. The variables of interest analyzed were the cumulative abnormal return by the time the results of each election became know and the return on equity in the year following the election. Panel regressions were estimated as ordinary least squares (OLS), and fixed effects of year and industry were included. The results indicate that not only the market anticipates future benefits for companies that contributed to campaigns - which is reflected in positive cumulative abnormal returns at the announcement of the election results - but these companies also have higher returns on equity than those that were not involved in the political process. In addition, donations to winning candidates generate higher returns than donations to losing candidates; which supports the return of favors hypothesis. Similarly, contributions to candidates affiliated to the president’s coalition's also had higher impact when compared to donations to the oposition candidates.

Este trabalho visa identificar possíveis vantagens que as empresas obtêm ao contribuir com campanhas políticas. Para isso, foi utilizada uma extensa base de dados com informações de doações a candidatos aos cargos de deputado, senador e presidente nas eleições de 2006 e 2010. As variáveis de interesse analisadas foram o retorno anormal cumulativo à época da divulgação do resultado das eleições e o retorno sobre o patrimônio líquido no ano posterior a cada eleição. Foram estimadas regressões de dados em painel através de mínimos quadrados ordinários, e incluídos efeitos fixos de ano e setor das empresas. Os resultados indicam que não apenas o mercado antecipa benefícios futuros para as empresas que contribuíram com campanhas – o que se reflete em retornos anormais cumulativos positivos à época da eleição – mas também estas empresas apresentam retornos sobre o patrimônio líquido superiores aos daquelas que não participaram do processo político. Além disso, doações a candidatos vencedores geram retorno superior aos de doações a candidatos perdedores; o que vai ao encontro da hipótese de retribuição de favores. De forma similar, contribuições a candidatos filiados à coligação do presidente eleito também apresentaram impacto superior quando comparadas com doações a candidatos da oposição. / This paper aims to identify potential benefits that companies obtain by contributing to political campaigns. We used an extensive database with information on donations to House, Senate and Presidency candidates in the 2006 and 2010 elections. The variables of interest analyzed were the cumulative abnormal return by the time the results of each election became know and the return on equity in the year following the election. Panel regressions were estimated as ordinary least squares (OLS), and fixed effects of year and industry were included. The results indicate that not only the market anticipates future benefits for companies that contributed to campaigns - which is reflected in positive cumulative abnormal returns at the announcement of the election results - but these companies also have higher returns on equity than those that were not involved in the political process. In addition, donations to winning candidates generate higher returns than donations to losing candidates; which supports the return of favors hypothesis. Similarly, contributions to candidates affiliated to the president’s coalition's also had higher impact when compared to donations to the oposition candidates.

Background: Swedish companies were negatively affected by the financial crisis between 2007 to 2009. Even if companies with a high level of financial leverage were hit harder due to the financial crisis than companies with financial leverage, the level of financial leverage about the same now as it was right before the financial crisis. Even if an increase of cash flows associated to financial leverage increase a company’s business opportunities, there are a lot of research done in the field that claim that the relation between financial leverage and financial performance is negative. Purpose: Since there is evidence that the relation between financial leverage and financial performance differ from different countries across the world, it is important to determine the relation in different countries. There is a research gap when it comes to the relation in Sweden, since the prior research have focused on specific industries or company sizes. By extending prior research in Sweden, companies, investors and creditors could get better understanding for Swedish companies’ relation between financial leverage and financial performance. Method: In the thesis, data from 750 companies listed on Stockholm stock exchange has been examined to determine the relation between financial leverage and financial performance. Totally, 3750 observation from the years 2012 to 2016, have been tested by a multivariate regression. Results: The evidence from the thesis showed that the relation between financial leverage and financial performance depends on which type of measurement for financial leverage and financial performance that is used. There is partly significant evidence that company size affect the relation

Mergers and acquisitions are one of the most researched topics in the financial literature and many research has been done. This thesis aims to analyse the impact of mergers and acquisitions on firms’ performance for the acquired firms and uses the difference-in-differences  (DID) estimation method with variation in treatment timing to achieve the objective. The dataused in this thesis are collected from database of Institute for Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances (IMAA) for 25 companies that merged between 2005 and 2019 and from the database of Indonesia Stock Exchange for 25 firms that did not undertake the mergers and acquisitions in the same period. The findings of this study indicate that there are statistically not significant effects on Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE). This suggests that the mergers and acquisitions do not affect the company's financial performance in terms of profitability.

Since the economic reform was initiated in 1978, the Chinese banking sector has undergone significant changes, particularly during the period under our investigation. This is primarily induced by the WTO entry in 2001, which brought in to full openness the financial market in China. The ultimate objective of the recent banking reform is to promote competition and efficiency as a way of improving the overall competitiveness and banking performance, in order to cope with challenges from foreign competitors. With the purpose of examining whether the recent banking reform is effective in achieving the targets as well as suggesting future policy directions, this study investigates market competition, cost efficiency and profitability in the Chinese banking industry over those critical years (1997-2006) before and after the WTO entry. We first employ both structural (the SCP) and non-structural (the Panzar-Rosse) approach to evaluate market competition. Then we estimate cost efficiency for Chinese banks under the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA). Finally, we assess the relationship between profitability and market structure under the structure-performance hypothesis and the efficient-structure hypothesis. Our findings show that Chinese banking market become less concentrated and more competitive since the WTO entry. Chinese banks improve their cost efficiencies, with state-owned banks are the least efficient while joint equity banks are the most efficient. The explanation for the relationship between profitability and market structure is quite mixed. The acceptance of which hypothesis depends on which dependent variable is used.

<p>CEO compensation is a relevant topic in today's society that touches both political and economic questions which are of interest for the whole general public. It affects people indirectly through CEOs actions and how these actions affect company performances. Due to the fact that there is a financial crisis, this thesis has its aim to catch some light over CEO compensation and its relation to company performances, if there is one.</p><p>The purpose was to investigate if we could find a relation between CEO compensation and company performances by using variables which we considered significant for this study. These variables are collected from each company's annual reports and which we have chosen to focus on the two past years 2007 and 2008, as it is the most recent data. For the principle of our thesis a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was applied, to best suite the purpose. When finding a sustainable and significant result, regressions of different variables from the annual reports were drawn and the outcomes of these were interpreted and analyzed. Our findings show that turnover is the only variable which indicated any significant p-value in the regressions drawn. Of all regressions three show significance and all arerelated to turnover. Given these results we can conclude that the other variables are not related to the CEO compensation in this case study.</p>

CEO compensation is a relevant topic in today's society that touches both political and economic questions which are of interest for the whole general public. It affects people indirectly through CEOs actions and how these actions affect company performances. Due to the fact that there is a financial crisis, this thesis has its aim to catch some light over CEO compensation and its relation to company performances, if there is one. The purpose was to investigate if we could find a relation between CEO compensation and company performances by using variables which we considered significant for this study. These variables are collected from each company's annual reports and which we have chosen to focus on the two past years 2007 and 2008, as it is the most recent data. For the principle of our thesis a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was applied, to best suite the purpose. When finding a sustainable and significant result, regressions of different variables from the annual reports were drawn and the outcomes of these were interpreted and analyzed. Our findings show that turnover is the only variable which indicated any significant p-value in the regressions drawn. Of all regressions three show significance and all arerelated to turnover. Given these results we can conclude that the other variables are not related to the CEO compensation in this case study.

This thesis adopts a new operational method to measure and investigate the relationship among cost efficiency, market competition and profitability in major Asian economies by using an unbalanced panel data sample of 278 commercial banks during the financial upheaval period of 2005-2012 before and after the global financial crisis. Firstly, we estimate the cost efficiency by employing different stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) models, which include the equity capital to indicate loss-absorbing capacity and risk preference and cross-country differences to be additional environmental variables. It is generally agreed that cross-country differences influence the frontier technology in the international comparison of banks performance. In this case, we implement the international comparison under SFA models with and without incorporating these cross-country heterogeneities. And the empirical results suggest that cross-country differences are significant sources to measure banks cost efficiency and evaluate banks performance. Secondly, we measure the market competition by investigating a range of approaches: the traditional Structure-Conduct-Performance approach, Lerner index, and new empirical industrial organization Panzar-Rosse approach. And we find that the SCP-Lerner approach may fail to identify the strength of competition and may not always unambiguously distinguish between the market power and the efficiency explanations of market concentration. Finally, following the approach of Boone, we measure the intensity of competition in two ways: the profit elasticity and the relative profit difference (calculated by cost efficiency score and shadow return on equity capital). Then we implement a quadratic quantile regression to compute the integral areas and standard errors for the Boone visual test and Wald test to reflect the relative intensity of competition for different competitive regimes over time. Our findings show that competition of banking industries become more intense in 9 Asian economies in the wake of the financial crisis and that two advanced economies (Singapore and Taiwan Province of China) and two remarkable emerging economies (China and India) play the significantly leading role in this intensifying competition process.