An individual's behavior is a substantial part of one’s personality and is a big part in decision-making, it applies to large and small decisions in our everyday lives. An increase in the proportion of young adults in the stock market has been observed in recent years. Our world was hit by a pandemic, Covid-19 and as a result of this pandemic, a majority of countries in the world experienced financial crises and difficulties. Many analysts noticed, however, the continued increase in private investors in the stock market. The results in this study have shown that an individual's personality and personal traits are decisive factors in how an investor will behave in the stock market. The different causes and factors addressed in the study affect each respondent in different ways where some were affected more and others less. The study thus showed that it was not only one factor or cause that affects how risky an investor is, it is a combination of several factors and causes. This study has provided a new perspective for the theorists as the study took place during a pandemic. Lastly, this study has given rise to relevant questions that are presented in future research suggestions. / En individs beteende är en stor del av personligheten och är även en avgörande faktor för olika beslut som vi individer fattar, det gäller såväl stora som små beslut i vår vardag. Olika faktorer och orsaker har större påverkan i vårt beteende än vad vi kan tro, även i vårt köpbeteende på finansmarknaden när investerare tar beslut om diverse investeringar såsom aktier. Det har i synnerhet observerats en ökning av andelen unga vuxna på aktiemarknaden under de senaste åren. Vår värld drabbades av en pandemi, Covid-19 och till följd av denna pandemi upplevde majoriteten av världens länder finansiella kriser och svårigheter. Det intressanta som däremot många analytiker uppmärksammade var den fortsatta ökningen av privata investerare på aktiemarknaden, speciellt de unga vuxna. I och med den ännu pågående pandemin har det därmed inte gjorts studier och observationer om privata investerares köpbeteende under just Coronapandemin. Detta har gett upphov till att föra en kvalitativ studie om vilka orsaker och faktorer som påverkar privata investerares köpbeteende och hur pass riskaverta investerarna är baserat på dessa orsaker och faktorer och det individuella köpbeteendet. Med hjälp av teorier och tidigare forskning från området beteendeekonomi (”behavioral finance” på engelska) har denna studie, vars avsikt varit att undersöka köpbeteende och grad av riskaversion, varit möjlig. Resultaten har visat att en individs personlighet och de personliga dragen är avgörande faktorer för hur en investerare kommer att bete sig på aktiemarknaden. De olika orsakerna och faktorerna som togs upp i studien påverkar varje respondent på olika sätt där vissa påverkades mer och andra mindre. Graden av riskaversionen hos studiens respondenter gick att avgöra baserat på varje investerares övertro på sig själv, hur påverkade de blir av lättillgänglig information, stereotyper som ett företag kan påvisa samt flockbeteende. Studien visade därmed att det inte endast var en faktor eller orsak som påverkar hur pass riskavert en investerare är, det handlar om en blandning av flera faktorer och orsaker. För just denna åldersgruppen var graden av riskaversion av svagare karaktär vilket indikerar på att investerare i denna åldersgrupp inte är rädda för större risker. Denna studie har gett ett nytt perspektiv för teoretikerna då studien tagit plats under en pandemi vilket kan ha bidragit med andra resultat med tanke på den finansiella krisen som världen drabbades av. Avslutningsvis har denna studie gett upphov till relevanta frågor som presenteras under förslag på framtida forskning.

Introduktion: Blankning är ett sätt för en investerare att tjäna på att bolagets aktiekurs faller och har anklagats för att vara bakomliggande orsak till flera finansiella kriser. Det finns olika anledningar till att ett bolag blankas, likaså kan ett bolag påverkas av blankningen på olika sätt. Den befintliga forskningen behandlar främst den amerikanska marknaden och de tekniska åtgärder bolagen utövar för att minska blankning. Därmed finns det en lucka i forskningen kring huruvida svenska bolag verkställer strategier eller inte för att mildra blankning.   Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka om svenska bolag verkställer strategier för att motverka blankningsnärvaro och förstå varför bolag har valt att styra på ett visst sätt vid en blankningssituation. Metod: Studien genomfördes med en kvalitativ forskningsansats och nyttjar empirisk såväl som teoretiskt material för att kontrastera den teoretiska referensramen med upptäckter i den empiriska data. Den primära datainsamlingen utgörs av semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra av de femton mest blankade bolag enligt Finansinspektionen för april 2021 där analysering av den empiriska data har följt en trestegsprocess bestående av beskrivning, systematisering och kombination.   Slutsats: Studien har visats sig att de fyra bolag som har intervjuats inte sysslar med aktiva strategier mot blankning eftersom det finns en överensstämmande bild bland bolagen att det ska vara en fri marknad och att aktörerna får ta egna beslut. Resultatet visar att de svenska bolagen fokuserar på det långsiktiga tillväxt och att bibehålla transparens gentemot marknaden som i slutändan ska rättfärdiga deras värdering. / Introduction: Short selling is a way for an investor to gain profit when a stock drops in price and the practice has been accused of being the reason behind several financial crises. There are various reasons why a company gets shorted, which affects the company in many ways. Previous studies have only processed short selling in the US market and technical actions that companies enforce to reduce short interest. However, there is a lack of studies about the Swedish market and strategies, if any, that Swedish companies work with to reduce short interest. Purpose:  The purpose of this study is to examine whether Swedish firms execute strategies or not to counteract the presence of short selling positions and understand why the firms have chosen to manage in a certain way during a short selling situation.  Method: The study was conducted with a qualitative approach and uses both empirical and theoretical material to contrast the theoretical framework with the discoveries from empirical data. The primary data collection consists of semi-structured interviews with four out of the fifteen most shorted companies according to Finansinspektionen for April 2021, whereas the data was analyzed using the three-step process consisting of description, systematisation, and combination. Findings: The study shows that the four firms interviewed do not actively work with strategies against short selling as there is a consensus amongst the firms that the market should operate freely and that the participants make their own decisions. The result shows that the Swedish firms focus on the long-term growth of the company and to maintain transparency towards the market which in the end should justify their valuation.

This thesis investigates the relationship between sustainability performance and ownership structure, measured using the ESG (environmental, social and governance) rating and ownership structure divided into four different ownerships (family/founder, institutional, corporate and governmental). In the pursuit of analysing the relationship between the ESG rating and the ownership structure, this study investigates publicly listed companies within the Nordic countries.This thesis has the aim of examining if a publicly listed company can use sustainability ratings and ownership structure, to understand broader market dynamics and help the manager thru this maximise firm value. Results from this could help them and the public in decision making processes around sustainability initiatives and how these characteristics influence the Nordic market dynamics, by having a better understanding of how the ESG ratings are prioritised among different ownership structures. This knowledge would allow management and the public to better understand how the ESG rating affects firm’s sustainability value as well as how market dynamics of this information is related to the market as a whole and direct competition.Using secondary data collected from Refinitiv database and Nasdaq, this thesis is a deductive and quantitative research that analyses companies for the target year 2020. In addition, this research can be considered to be a historic study.The findings of this research indicate a causal relation between sustainability performance and ownership structure, leading to the conclusion that a different ownership structure might influence and lead to a different score on the scale of sustainability performance. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the governmental ownership structure has the highest positive effect on sustainability performance.Concluding with discussing how this research contributes to the current field of knowledge on the topic through analysing the results using the legitimacy, shareholder, stakeholder and agency theory. The results are aligned with the legitimacy theory on ownership structure and the stakeholder theory. Additionally, the shareholder and the agency theory help with explaining why some structures put less value on sustainability performance than others.From the results one can conclude that sustainability performance is of importance to a varying degree among the different ownership structures. This tells us that there is still a gap in understanding why different ownership structures engage in different sustainability initiatives and future research is needed to examine why different structures engage in it over others.

Background: The demand for ESG reporting has increased significantly in recent years. Simultaneously, in 2016, ESG reporting was implemented in the annual accounts act as a mandatory part. Consequently, ESG reporting has increased and gained focus from larger organizations. Stakeholder and shareholder theory are two main theoretical concepts that can explain and help portray the reporting of ESG. Recent developments have raised questions regarding how the information should be reported and targeted to whom. Purpose: This thesis aims to investigate how the top four banks in Sweden are portraying their ESG reporting. The study will analyze if the portrayal of ESG is biased toward any specific stakeholders. Method: The method used in this thesis combines quantitative and qualitative methods, as the authors found it most suitable to achieve the most thorough results. Interviews represents the qualitative method, and the coding of annual reports represents the quantitative method. Additionally, the thesis is built upon an abductive approach that enables the authors to alter between theory and empery, allowing the understanding to emerge along with the thesis. Ultimately, the mixed method and abductive approach produced the best conditions to fulfill the purpose. Findings: Even though theory suggests that the leading banks in Sweden should be able to achieve maximal satisfaction among all stakeholders simultaneously, it seems unrealistic to do so in reality. However, reaching maximal satisfaction is still the main goal for the banks, as stakeholder theory also suggests. The second finding is the presence of stakeholder pressure when portraying ESG reporting among the leading banks in Sweden. The report shows that the banks will act in stakeholders' interests when exposed to pressure from internal and external stakeholders. A more general finding is the dominance of stakeholder theory in ESG reporting amongst the leading banks in Sweden. Over the last years, the reporting towards stakeholders has increased significantly, while shareholder-targeted reporting has remained stable. However, it is still worth mentioning that the assumption of shareholder theory still somewhat holds.

Thesis (M.COM. (Accounting)) -- University of Limpopo, 2017 / Corporate environmental investments have traditionally been deemed to be an unnecessary cost to companies because of perceived or no significant return on investment. However, recent literature is highlighting financial benefits accruing from environmental investments. This study investigates the relationship between corporate environmental investment and shareholder value. The study uses the stakeholder and legitimacy theory to define the company‟s engagement with its external society and environment. From that perspective, the study examines the effect of corporate environmental investment on carbon emissions, hazardous solid waste disposal and company share price. Panel data multiple regression was used to investigate the relationship between the variables under study. Findings show a significant positive relationship between investment in carbon emissions and share price while there is an insignificant negative relationship between investment in hazardous solid waste and share price. The study contributes to the notion that reducing the environmental footprint generates positive shareholder gains by bringing new evidence from the South African mining industry. Further studies can be performed with company profitability as a measure of financial performance and further in a different sector such as manufacturing.

SAMMANFATTNINGAktieägaravtal, det vill säga avtal mellan ägare i ett aktiebolag som reglerar aktiebolagets struktur och hur verksamheten ska styras, är vanligt förekommande i näringslivet. Aktieägaravtalet kan betraktas som ett komplement till bolagsordningen, som är aktiebolagets grundläggande dokument. Aktieägaravtal förekommer i många former och skepnader. Det står aktieägarna i princip fritt att avtala om vad som helst som rör bolaget och deras ägande. En annan sak är att ett aktieägaravtal aldrig i frånvaro av lagstöd kan få aktiebolagsrättsliga verkningar. Det är en konsekvens av den aktiebolagsrättsliga separationsprincipen. På motsvarande sätt innebär den avtalsrättsliga separationsprincipen att avtalet inte är bindande för tredje man samt att aktiebolagsrätten inte åstadkommer någon verkan på aktieägaravtalet. Avtalet gäller mellan parterna. I aktieägaravtal är det mycket vanligt med så kallade överlåtelse- och beslutsbindningar. Överlåtelsebindningar reglerar förutsättningarna för hur avtalsparterna får överlåta sina aktier. Beslutsbindningar reglerar det sätt på vilket beslut i till exempel bolagsstämman eller styrelsen ska fattas, vilka majoritetskrav som ska gälla, om det föreligger vetorätt och så vidare. I den här uppsatsen undersöker jag beslutsbindningar i aktieägaravtal som ingås av aktieägare i banker och värdepappersbolag. Utgångspunkten är att aktieägaravtal, genom att reglera beslutsfattandet, kan användas som ett viktigt bolagsstyrningsinstrument för aktieägarna. Banker och värdepappersbolag är emellertid föremål för omfattande, näringsrättslig reglering vars ändamål kan komma i konflikt med ändamålen bakom den avtalsfrihet som ligger till grund för aktieägarnas fri- och rättighet att ingå aktieägaravtal. Uppsatsen bygger på en traditionell rättsvetenskaplig metod. Det övergripande syftet med ämnesvalet är att berika förståelsen för aktieägaravtal genom att tillföra ett kapitalmarknadsrättsligt perspektiv på användningen av sådana avtal i just banker och värdepappersbolag. / Shareholder agreements are contractual arrangements among shareholders in a limited liability company that describe the structure of the company and how it should be operated.  The shareholder agreement can be seen as a supplement to the articles of association, the main constitutional document in the company.  Shareholder agreements exist in a variety of formats. The shareholders are free to regulate whatever they prefer regarding the company and their ownership. Whereas an agreement creates obligations for the parties involved, the agreement can never have company law effects unless there is explicit legal support for this. This is the essence of the company law separation principle. Correspondingly, company law can never have any effect on the contractual obligations between the shareholders that are party to an agreement. This is commonly referred to as the contractual separation principle.  It is common for shareholder agreements to contain transfer obligations and decision obligations. Transfer obligations regulate the conditions under which ownership of shares can be transferred. Decision obligations regulate how decisions are made in general meetings, the board of directors and so on. This thesis examines decision obligations in shareholder agreements between shareholders in banks and investment firms. The starting point is that shareholder agreements, by regulating decision-making, can be used as an important corporate governance tool for the shareholders. Banks and investment firms are subject to a comprehensive framework of capital markets regulations. Capital markets regulations have goals and objectives that may conflict with the shareholders’ fundamental freedom of contract, which is the base for their right to enter into shareholder agreements. The thesis builds on the method of traditional jurisprudence. The overall objective of the thesis is to enrich the understanding of shareholder agreements by applying a capital markets law perspective on the use of such agreements in banks and investment firms.

The consolidation of corporate ownership into the hands of large institutional investors has resulted in growing expectations that actors in the financial system should leverage their positions of ownership to improve corporate sustainability. In other words, institutional investors are expected to take a greater responsibility for the transition towards a greener economy by becoming active owners. However, active ownership is not a uniform concept. Instead, the term can imply many different strategies and tools, raising questions of how investors become active owners in a way that yields maximum influence while economizing their resources. Among all the tools investors have available, shareholder engagement through dialogues is suggested to have many advantages. However, previous research has not provided a clear-cut account of the mechanisms by which shareholder engagement through dialogues unfold successfully. Therefore, this thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of when and how engagement dialogue becomes a powerful tool for shareholders in order to improve corporate sustainability. The study is performed in the context of actively managed equity funds, with interviews from both funds and companies. In order to understand how actively managed equity funds can effectively leverage their ownership through engagement dialogues, the focus of this study has been twofold. First, the research has focused on understanding how the internal structures within funds should be designed to support the engagement process. Second, the research has focused on pinpointing the mechanisms that make engagement dialogue between Swedish equity funds and their portfolio companies successful. This has resulted in the development of three frameworks, aiming to facilitate funds to make conscious decisions regarding how they work with shareholder dialogues. / Aktieägare har en nyckelroll när det kommer till att påverka bolag till att ställa om till en mer hållbar verksamhet genom att praktisera ett aktivt ägandeskap. Att vara en aktiv ägare kan dock betyda många olika saker, och investerare kan använda sig av en uppsjö av olika strategier och verktyg. Därmed väcks frågan hur investerare praktiserar ett aktivt ägandeskap så effektivt som möjligt. Bland de verktyg som investerare har tillgängliga för att bedriva aktivt ägande så föreslås påverkansarbete genom dialog ha många fördelar. Tidigare forskning har dock inte fullgott redogjort för de mekanismer som gör att investerares påverkansarbete genom dialog blir framgångsrikt. Mot den bakgrunden så är syftet med den här uppsatsen att fördjupa förståelsen för hur påverkansdialog blir ett kraftfullt verktyg för investerare när de försöker påverka företag till att bli mer hållbara. Studien har genomförts i den svenska kontexten med fokus på aktivt förvaltade aktiefonder. Genom intervjuer på både investerar- och företagssidan har studien rörts sig i interaktionen mellan fonder och dess portföljbolag. För att förstå hur aktivt förvaltade aktiefonder kan få inflytande genom påverkansdialoger har studien haft ett tudelat fokus. Fokus har legat på att försöka förstå dels hur interna strukturer bör utformas för att stötta påverkansdialoger på bästa sätt, och dels på vilka mekanismer och kritiska faktorer som behövs för att påverkansdialoger ska bli framgångsrika. Detta har mynnat ut i tre ramverk som alla syftar till att underlätta för fonder att göra medvetna val kring hur de arbetar genom påverkansdialoger

The role of Institutional investors in alleviating the agent problem of management and its valuation effect has been studied extensively in corporate finance. We complement this stream of research by exploring management's control over institutional investors with misaligned objectives, particularly public pension fund, and the consequential valuation effect. We investigate the politic motive of public pension fund's shareholder activism and its impact on the target firms' operational performance, address the control of a strong management on public pension funds' self-serving agenda, and finally we compare the ownership adjustment pattern of public pension funds to other institutional investors to conclude public pension funds' ownership adjustment reflects their private pursuit. The first chapter explores the politic facet and performance effect of shareholder activism sponsored by public pension fund. In this study, we show that having a public pension fund as the leading sponsor of a shareholder proposal significantly improves the proposal's likelihood of being accepted by the target firm. The increased acceptance rate sources from the subset of proposals addressing a social responsibility issue, and targeting firms with weak insider control. An investigation of the public pension board reveals that the board's political profile is the primary determinant of public pension fund's propensity to lead a proposal, and the target firm's acceptance rate. We also assess the performance impact of shareholder proposals. For target firms with strong insider control, the performance impact of accepted social responsibility proposals is significantly positive; that of governance proposals is negligible. For target firms with weak insider control, the performance impact associated with public pension funds is either negative or negligible. These results suggest that the motive driving public pension funds' dominant presence in shareholder activism is not market based, but laden with purpose other than value creation. In the second chapter, we postulate that the widely documented negative valuation effect of ownership by public pension will be weak on firms with extra managerial control mechanism and/or whose managerial ownership of cash flow is high. For firms with high level managerial ownership of cash flow, management bears higher cost for a concession made with public pension fund's misaligned objective. An efficient market will expect this effect and value the managerial control over public pension fund to the extent that the management's benefit is aligned with outside shareholders. Consequently, the cross section valuation difference of firms held by public pension funds can be explained by the managerial ownership of cash flow, managerial control derived from extra mechanism such as dual class share, however, has no explanative power. The last chapter investigates the link between private benefits and institutional holding change. We assume the cross section equilibrium of block holding will break when market sentiment is high. Consequently, block holder tends to shed more shares loaded with less private benefits by taking advantage of opportunities available in a high sentiment market. The empirical results support this conjecture. When the market sentiment is high, Institutional block holders tend to shed more private benefits meager dual-class share than private benefits affluent non-dual class share. This pattern does not exist when the market sentiment is low. Most importantly, public pension fund is identified as the major driver of this effect. / Business Administration

The concept, sustainability, has developed throughout the years and has become an important part for different actors around the world. Due to many organizations like the United Nations acknowledging this aspect together with governments, initiatives and laws have been implemented for businesses to follow. This forms the basis of what is now called ESG which includes three individual aspects: environment, social responsibility and governance. One of the actors includes investors who have now started to shift their focus onto sustainable investments. In order for them to make decisions about the company's way of working towards a sustainable business, analytics began to measure both each individual aspect of ESG and as a whole. Therefore, ESG rating has become a well-known way of measuring how companies perform when it comes to environment, social responsibility and governance. The pharmaceutical industry in Europe is the second largest in the world and has become acknowledged due to the covid-19 pandemic. It has not only faced criticism and uncertainties both during and after the pandemic, but also faces problems in each individual aspect of ESG. When it comes to environmental issues, the pharmaceutical industry stands for 55% more of carbon emissions than the automotive sector due to non-sustainable supply chains. For the aspect, social responsibility, their main problems include addiction, antibiotic resistance and accessibility of pharmaceuticals. Further, governance issues include illegal marketing and fraud. Due to this, governments and organizations have put pressure on businesses to work towards a sustainable industry. Therefore, ESG ratings have become an important measurement for investors. The aim of the study is to analyze the relationship between ESG and financial performance in the pharmaceutical industry in Europe with a time period of 2018-2022. The results will indicate if the Shareholder’s theory or the Stakeholder’s theory is more applicable for this industry. The result shows a negative significant relationship between the overall rating of ESG and Tobin’s. When it comes to the individual aspect, governance is statically proved to have a negative significant relationship with Tobin’s Q. This concludes that the Shareholder’s theory is more aligned with the results meaning that the pharmaceutical industry may focus on profit maximization for shareholders. Since there was a non-statically proven relationship between ESG and ROA, the study suggests further research within this topic.

Over the last decade, awareness of sustainability issues has increased and changed the information needs of investors. This development is also reflected in a transition of corporate reporting – the increase in the importance of sustainability reporting in addition to traditional financial reporting. However, the changed information needs are not yet met by reporting companies. Therefore, this paper-based dissertation comprises four manuscripts dealing with the transition of corporate reporting. Overall, this dissertation contributes toward a more refined understanding of the changed needs to support practitioners and regulators in the transition process of corporate reporting.