The Aviation Industry in South Africa is considered to be a budding industry with an expected growth rate of 14% for each of the next three years. Considering that, plenty investment and expansion possibilities are probably available in this industry. Nonetheless, given the current economic situation, challenges may exist that necessitates the development of a decision framework. The aim of this framework should thus be to assist with informed decision-making; whether to invest in, or utilize opportunities that may occur within a given prospective “high” growth situation. In the light of all of this, a specific aviation entity desires to exploit possible business opportunities that may occur. Provided the relative high growth situation in the Aviation Industry, as mentioned above, the entity has a specific need for a decision tool which could determine whether to invest in new projects or not. In order to meet this need, a decision framework has been developed during this study. Considering the emphasis currently placed on wealth creation in the business environment, it is considered appropriate to utilize the value-based management approach in this study, with specific reference to capital budgeting techniques in developing a decision framework. Data for the study has been obtained from the participating aviation entity, who was considering investment in a specific project, given the previously referred to prospective high growth situation in the Aviation Industry. The decision framework or model was developed using Microsoft Excel as the development platform. Based on the input data, as received from the aviation entity, the results from the decision model indicated that the considered project was indeed financially viable. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This study investigates what impact mergers and acquisitions have on bank efficiency by examining both pre-merger and post-merger performance. Specifically, the research looks at the effect of bank efficiency on shareholder wealth creation upon bank merger announcement. The study finds supportive evidence that the market takes into account the pre-merger bidder bank’s efficiency in adjusting the bank stock’s price at the time of announcement. This suggests that bank efficiency has a significant positive effect on shareholder wealth creation when a merger is announced. Furthermore, in reacting to the announcement, the market also perceives the prospects for future enhancement of bank efficiency as a result of the current event. Thus, post-merger bank efficiency is found to also contribute to shareholder value creation on merger announcement. In particular, the study finds evidence suggesting that post-merger profit efficiency, rather than cost efficiency, has a positive effect on cumulative abnormal returns. The study investigates 56 commercial bank mergers that took place in 22 European countries between 2001 and 2007. The event study methodology is used to determine shareholder wealth creation, employing the market model in estimating expected returns. Efficiency is estimated using the parametric stochastic frontier approach. Performance improvement in the combined firm is obtained by comparing post-merger efficiency with pre-merger efficiency, which is the sum of bidder and target efficiencies after weighting them based on their pre-merger total assets. To find out whether efficiency has an effect on shareholder value creation, regression analyses are performed involving cumulative abnormal returns, a few efficiency variables, and a number of control variables. The main finding of this study is that pre-merger bank efficiency contributes to short-term shareholder value creation upon merger announcement. Some evidence is also found that post-merger bank efficiency has a positive effect on shareholder value creation at announcement time which is associated more with profit efficiency than with cost efficiency. Also, as the study finds statistically significant positive cumulative abnormal returns, the results of this study are supportive of the view that, increasingly, European merger studies that examine post-2000 data find that bank mergers are value-creating even for the bidding firms. Evidence that pre-merger bank efficiency has a positive effect on cumulative abnormal returns, and that the market takes into account perceived future bank efficiency on merger announcement, underscores the importance of efficiency as a performance measure. If how the market reacts to a merger announcement reflects future efficiency performance, shareholders, policy makers, and other stakeholders may be able to take that as one of the factors on which they can base their decisions regarding the yet uncompleted merger. They can also use previous efficiency records for predicting short-term and long-term performance of prospective parties to a merger before announcement.

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Exclusion And Withdrawal of Members And Cancellation of Their Membership In a Limited Liability Company Abstract This thesis aims to analyze current legislation of exclusion and withdrawal of members and cancellation of their membership in a limited liability company. Although comparing the current legislation with the previous one is not the purpose of the thesis, such comparison is provided in several places. The purpose is to show the same or, conversely, different features of both, particularly in relation to the applicability of existing case law and doctrinal interpretation. The work consists of three main chapters that form a coherent wholes. The first chapter is devoted to the withdrawal of a member of a limited liability company and is further divided into several sub-chapters. It deals with the legal aspects of the withdrawal of a member under the Czech legislativ. It describes in detail the various reasons of the withdrawal and also offers some suggestions de lege ferenda. The second chapter focuses on the exclusion of a shareholder of a limited liability company by the general meeting. It brings an analysis of legislation, describes the procedure of exclusion and analyzes the available case law. The third chapter, entitled "Termination of participation of a member of a limited liability company...

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Ted C. Schroeder / This study focuses on the effects of food safety recalls on a firm’s shareholder value. In this study, the effects of six recalls are studied using the event study method. Three models were used involving the daily stock returns for each recall, the daily prices from the S&P 500 and the S&P 500-Packaged Foods and Meats prices. Each of these models was used to determine the abnormal returns for the individual recalls during a determined event window. The four companies responsible for the recalls are all large, highly-diversified food production companies. Overall, the results from this study show there is short-term effect on shareholder values for the companies included in this study. This is an important topic that was widely studied in the late 1990’s and early part of the 2000’s. There have not been any notable studies in this area in the past decade which is why this study is useful. Results of this study are comparable to those mentioned in the literature review section.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka ifall det finns ett samband mellan företagens aktielikviditet och deras utdelningspolicy samt hur detta eventuella samband förefaller. Det undersöks utifrån forskningsfrågan “Hur påverkar aktielikviditet den eventuella utdelningen hos svenska aktiebolag?”. Aktielikviditet är ett begrepp som beskriver hur likvid en aktie är, det vill säga hur ofta den säljs och köps på börsen (Banerjee et al. 2007). En aktie med hög aktielikviditet är därför lättare att sälja än en aktie med låg aktielikviditet (ibid). Inom tidigare forskning har aktielikviditet undersökts och huruvida detta påverkar företags utdelningspolicy på den amerikanska respektive kinesiska marknaden och påvisat att det finns ett samband mellan dessa (Banerjee et al. 2007; Jiang et al. 2017). Deras samband var däremot tvärtemot varandra (ibid), varför det är intressant att undersöka hur sambandet förefaller på den svenska marknaden.   Hur likvid en aktie är påverkar aktieägarnas likviditetsbehov, då de lättare kan sälja en aktie med hög aktielikviditet och på så sätt skapa sig en “hemmagjord” utdelning (Banerjee et al. 2007). Tvärtom har en aktieägare som innehar mindre likvida aktier svårare att sälja dessa och är därmed i större behov av en generös utdelningspolicy för att tillfredsställa sitt likviditetsbehov (ibid). En generös utdelningspolicy är konsekvent med teorin Shareholder Value Maximization (Bento et al. 2016), vilken är central i denna studie. Teorin handlar om att företag kontinuerligt ska sträva efter att maximera värdet för aktieägarna (ibid).    Forskningsfrågan har undersökts utifrån en kvantitativ ansats med tvärsnittsdata i en multipel regressionsanalys. Inför undersökningen konstruerades antagandet att börsnoterade aktiebolag på den svenska marknaden är mer benägna att betala utdelning när de har låg aktielikviditet jämfört med hög aktielikviditet. Antagandet utformades med utgångspunkt i tidigare forskning. Studiens empiri kunde bekräfta detta antagande, även om sambandet var svagt. Det samband som återfanns kunde kopplas samman med relevanta teorier som signaleringshypotesen och Shareholder Value Maximization och därigenom visa att aktielikviditet har en betydelse för aktieägare och företags utdelningspolicys. / This paper aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between stock liquidity and companies’ dividend policy and if there is, how this relationship appears. Stock liquidity shows how liquid a stock is which means how often it is traded on the Stock market (Banerjee et al. 2007). A stock with high liquidity is easier to sell than a stock with low liquidity because the more liquid a stock is, the higher the demand (ibid). Previous research on the American and Chinese markets has found a connection between stock liquidity and dividend policies (Banerjee et al. 2007; Jiang et al. 2017), though this connection has appeared differently in each research project. This makes the subject interesting to investigate further and on other markets such as the Swedish market.   Stock liquidity has an impact on stockholders’ liquidity needs because owners of more liquid shares can sell their shares to create “homemade” dividends (Banerjee et al. 2007). Therefore, shareholders of less liquid stocks must rely heavily on dividends to satisfy their liquidity needs and has a larger interest in a generous dividend policy (ibid). A generous dividend policy is consistent with the theory Shareholder Value Maximization (Bento et al. 2016), which is a central part of this paper. The theory expresses that a company's main goal should always imply maximizing the value for their shareholders (ibid).   To answer this essay´s research question “How does stock liquidity impact the eventual dividend within companies listed on the Swedish stock market?”, this paper uses a quantitative approach with cross-sectional data in a multiple regression analysis. An assumption on the outcome of the analysis was deduced from earlier research. The assumption was that Swedish companies with low stock liquidity would be less inclined to initiate dividends than companies with high stock liquidity. This paper could confirm the assumption earlier described, but the conjunction was rather weak. The relationship found between stock liquidity and dividend policy could relate to theories such as Shareholder Value Maximization and the Signalling hypothesis. Therefore, this paper could confirm that stock liquidity has an impact on stockholders and companies´ dividend policies.

This thesis addresses risks of multiple recovery, prejudice to legitimate interests of third parties, and inadequate consideration of the applicable law in shareholder claims in investment treaty arbitration. It challenges the application by investment tribunals of two basic premises: i) that shareholders are entitled to claim for damages vis-à-vis measures against the company in which they hold shares and ii) that ‘contract claims’ are to be distinguished from ‘treaty claims’. The central argument is that the failure to recognize substantive overlaps between shareholder treaty claims and contract claims risks more than one recovery, potentially prejudices third parties, and can lead to an incomplete application of the applicable law. The foundations of standing and the cause of action in shareholder treaty claims involve two complementary ideas of independence, i.e., independence of shareholder treaty rights vis-à-vis the local company’s contractual/national law rights and independence of treaty claims vis-à-vis contract claims. However, the substance of shareholder treaty claims, defined as the state measure and particularly the losses involved, is often identical to or at least overlaps considerably with related contract/national law claims. Prevailing ideas on shareholder standing and the cause of action in international investment law have provided useful conceptual tools for jurisdictional determinations. Yet they have not allowed tribunals and the literature to fully consider the implications of shareholder indirect claims. The thesis argues, first, that investment tribunals should acknowledge substantive overlaps between contract and treaty claims. Second, shareholder claims may be inadmissible when such overlap exists and there is a risk of double recovery or prejudice to third parties. Third, the substantive coincidence of treaty and contract claims calls for an integrated approach to the applicable law, where proper weight is given not only to IIA provisions but also to general international law and the national law governing the investment.

This thesis examines the influence of institutional investors in the activities of large, publicly traded gold mining companies. As key sources of financing and dominant shareholders in company stocks, institutional investors have pushed for the maximisation of shareholder value as company goal. I examine the financial and operational realignments implemented by firms and their implications for production, growth and geography in the commodity boom and bust cycle of 2003-2015. I argue that the bid to deliver shareholder value manifested in highly fragmented, but interlinked, sites of accumulation: sharp swings in stocks and dividend payments that diverged from their actual basis in production, alongside increasing claims to future profitability through spatial restructuring. I theorise the process as contradictory-laden and crisis-prone as mineral extraction came to be mediated by the yield requirements, investment motives and risk tolerance of institutional investors. The thesis contributes to key debates on financialisation and mineral extraction within geography, political ecology and the financialisation literature.

Motivés par des articles et des discussions récentes sur les valeurs monétaires par rapport aux valeurs sociales, j'ai un grand intérêt à étudier l'impact des valeurs sociales ou de la responsabilité sociale des entreprises (“CSR”) sur les valeurs des entreprises. Le chapitre un et le chapitre deux étudient tous deux l'activisme des actionnaires sur les questions de CSR, tout en ayant des objectifs différents. Le premier chapitre étudie les propositions d'actionnaires déposées par des fonds socialement responsables (“SRIs”) en utilisant un échantillon collecté à la main. Le premier chapitre fournit des statistiques descriptives sur ces propositions et examine les caractéristiques de l'entreprise cible. Deuxièmement, à l'aide de la méthodologie de l'étude des événements, il examine la réaction du marché autour du dépôt de la proposition et constate une réaction positive du marché à ces propositions. Troisièmement, il examine l’horizon à plus long terme et étudie l’impact à long terme de ces propositions sur la valeur marchande, la performance opérationnelle et la performance sociale des entreprises. Le deuxième chapitre étudie un échantillon plus large de propositions d'actionnaires déposées par différentes parties, notamment des investisseurs institutionnels (par exemple, fonds de pension, fonds SRI), des syndicats, des fondations, des groupes religieux et des particuliers. Le chapitre deux se concentre plus sur l'identification de l'impact des différents déclarants sur le résultat de la proposition, et les résultats montrent que les investisseurs institutionnels tels que les fonds SRI et les fonds de pension sont des déclarants plus performants. Si une proposition est déposée par des fonds SRI ou des fonds de pension, elle a beaucoup plus de chances de réussir et recevoir des votes plus favorables. La réaction du marché aux activités de dépôt de propositions est également positive pour ces déposants et a également une incidence à long terme sur les entreprises cibles. Le chapitre trois étudie la performance des fonds SRI. En choisissant une période de temps particulière (c’est-à-dire la crise financière), elle tente de séparer la performance des investissements des fonds des rendements générés par des groupes spécifiques d’entreprises (c’est-à-dire les entreprises ayant de bonnes notes CSR). Les résultats montrent que ces SRIs génèrent des rendements inférieurs à ceux des fonds conventionnels pendant la crise, alors que ces entreprises obtiennent en moyenne des rendements plus élevés pendant la crise, comme le suggèrent d'autres études (Lins et al. 2017). Cependant, ce résultat ne persiste pas après la crise financière dans l'échantillon correspondant. La volatilité des flux des SRIs est inférieure à celle des fonds conventionnels. L'analyse de la sensibilité des flux dans une régression linéaire par morceaux montre que les SRIs attirent plus de flux que les fonds conventionnels après avoir contrôlé divers autres facteurs. Une analyse plus poussée montre que les SRIs ont tendance à avoir un horizon d'investissement plus long et à vendre moins pendant la crise. Il aborde également les raisons potentielles et les motivations des investisseurs en examinant les flux de fonds SRI, les sensibilités aux performances des flux, horizons des investisseurs et les activités de vente pendant la crise. / Motivated by papers and recent talks on monetary values versus social values, I have great interest in studying how social values or corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) could impact firm values. Recent studies have shown that there are mainly three potential channels, through which CSR affects firm value. Firstly, employees help create firm value. Employee welfare is part of CSR (measured by MSCI ESG KLD Statistics, known as KLD scores), and employee satisfaction improves firm value shown by positive long-term abnormal stock market returns. (eg. Edmans 2011) Secondly, customers strongly link to firm value. Product quality and safety are part of CSR, and product characteristics are the main reasons directly linked to customer purchasing decisions, especially for firms in manufacturing and retail industries. Moreover, part of the customers may be socially conscious and are sensitive to firms’ actions towards environmental, community or human rights issues. They may form updated opinion of the firm based on their CSR activities and thus influence their purchasing decisions. Papers find that firms with more customer awareness benefit more from CSR. (eg. Servaes and Tamayo 2013) Thirdly, investors are associated with firm value. Investors, especially socially-conscious investors help discipline the firms’ CSR activities. Shareholder proposal is one good venue where they raise their voice and engage in the firms. Investors could use exit strategy to sell their shares, and changes in investment flows could affect firms’ value. (eg. Bialkowski & Starks 2016) The third channel, investors’ engagements in CSR issues in the firm and their association with firm value implications, as well as the related SRI investment performance are the main focus of this dissertation.

This thesis consists of three empirical studies investigating, from various perspectives, the corporate motivations to join one of the largest voluntary initiatives promoting sustainability: the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). I employ three different statistical techniques, logistic regression analysis, event history analysis and structural equation modelling. The first study provides evidence from a field experiment on shareholder engagement effectiveness in general and on which tactics are more effective in engaging publicly traded firms. The experiment consists of an invitation letter sent by the Principles for Responsible Investment Clearinghouse, one of the largest worldwide coalition of investors, to encourage companies to sign up the United Nations Global Compact. I use a theoretical model for investor salience in order to understand the impact of the engagement. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first large-scale research on engagement using randomized controlled trials in the academic literature and in practice. The aim of the second study is three fold. First, most academic literature focuses on how the adoption of the UNGC impacts on the implementation of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance; this study addresses how ESG performance shapes the CSR strategy, namely, the UNGC. Next, I explore to what extent the ESG performance of firms adopting the UNGC change over time. Finally, this paper investigates whether the existence of controversies is a determinant for joining the initiative. Results show that, in all cases, ESG performance is significant and positively related to the adoption of the Ten Principles. Furthermore, results show that ESG performance differs across different points in time. Contrary to my expectations, controversies have no influence on UNGC membership. The third and final study examines the effect of the characteristics of the board of directors on the adoption of the UNGC/GRI by US-based firms. I investigate whether and how a CSR oriented board chooses the UNGC/GRI as part of their firms reporting strategy. I also consider the level of environmental and social performance as a mediator for such a decision. Results show that there is a positive and significant relationship between the board and environmental and social performance, and between environmental and social performance and the adoption of voluntary CSR initiatives. This relationship is stronger for social performance and for the GRI. Overall, this thesis provides further evidence about motivations to join the UNGC. The outcomes of this thesis are of relevance for shareholders and investor coalitions, policy makers, and other groups of stakeholders. Theoretically, this thesis adds to the literature on shareholder engagement, strategy and corporate governance.