The recent and well debated topic of sustainable investments together with the contradiction of the typical sustainable individual and the typical investor constitutes the purpose for the empirical research. Secondary shareholder data obtained from the Central Securities Depositary, Euroclear Sweden, together with corporate sustainable ratings from Thomson Reuters contributes to portraying the typical Swedish sustainable investor. Together with previous research we find that women tend to invest more in sustainable companies than men and that a lower income is related to a higher degree of sustainable investments. In conflict with presented theories we state that, based on our sample, investors over age 65 hold more sustainable companies than their younger counterpart. Regarding gender the results show that women invest more in sustainable companies than men. / Hållbara investeringar är ett ämne som fått ett allt större fokus vid investeringsbeslut och påverkan på miljö och social rättvisa är högaktuellt i den vardagliga debatten. Den grupp individer som beskrivs vara intresserade av hållbarhetsfrågor i allmänhet är unga kvinnor. Samtidigt visar tidigare undersökningar att i sammanhanget investerare är den typiske investeraren en man över 50 år. Uppsatsens problemformulering utgår från denna skillnad mellan den hållbara individen och den typiske investeraren för att undersöka vilka investerare som står för investeringar i hållbara företag. De demografiska faktorerna kön, ålder, årsinkomst, portföljvärde och bostadsort används i uppsatsen för att identifiera skillnader mellan hållbara och icke-hållbara investerare. Samt ifall demografiska faktorer har något samband med en investerares grad av hållbarhet. Ägardata för de demografiska faktorerna har baserats på Euroclear Swedens värdepapperscentral. Företagen i urvalet har hållbarhetsklassificerats utifrån Thomson Reuters ESG-score, en betygsättning av företag med hänsyn till deras arbete kring miljö, social och bolagsstyrningspåverkan.  Tidigare forskning presenterar demografisk utformning för investerare som tar hänsyn till hur deras placeringar påverkar omvärlden. Enhälligt för tidigare forskning är att det är kvinnor som bryr sig om hållbarhet och investerar socialt ansvarsfullt, samt att unga investerare väljer i större utsträckning hållbarhet jämfört med äldre. För inkomst pekar tidigare forskning inte på en gemensam inkomstklass utan beroende på i vilket land undersökningen är gjord samt på vilken investerartyp den är gjord skiljer sig resultatet åt. Storstadsbor investerar enligt tidigare forskning mer hållbart än övrig befolkning och portföljvärdet för hållbara investerare beskrivs i regel vara lägre än för de icke hållbara. Genom t-test undersöks skillnaden mellan hållbara samt icke-hållbara och genom regressionsanalyser undersöks hur demografiska variabler har en påverkan på graden av hållbarhet i svenska privata aktieportföljer.  Undersökningen finner vad gäller skillnaden mellan hållbara och icke-hållbara investerare att variabeln ålder utgör en statistiskt signifikant skillnad mellan de olika investerartyperna. Resultatet talar emot den teoretiska referensramen och visar att investerare över 65 år har högst koncentration i hållbara företag, jämfört med åldersklasserna 18-44 och 45-64. Skillnaden mellan könen tyder även på att kvinnor investerar mer hållbart än män och att hållbara investerare har en lägre genomsnittlig inkomst än de icke hållbara investerarna.

Responsible Investments is currently paving new paths in the financial industry. UnitedNation´s Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) has in four years attracted over 700signatories in 36 countries. The principles are voluntary and kept in an open non-governingstructure. The lack of formal definitions and the actual value or effects of the UN PRIadoption is difficult to assess. Many researchers today are involved in attempts to measure thefinancial performance of responsible investments. This study takes a different stand point andinvestigates the motivation for joining UN PRI, how the implementation has been carried outand what the effects are, by the use of a case study. The six largest investors in terms of assetunder management (AUM) among the Swedish UN PRI signatories were interviewed, and aqualitative based semi structured interview was used. A structural analysis was carried out onthe results. Institutional Theory was used to explain the motivation for joining UN PRI andserved as the theoretical framework. Interpretation of UN PRI´s implementation differed insome instances to a large degree between the respondents. Transparency was uncovered as amajor success factor to the investors in support of decision making. All interviewedsignatories had developed their own way of working with UN PRI in terms of organization,priorities and the attempts to measure its effects. There is still a great need for moreknowledge around how these principles shall be implemented successfully and become part ofmainstream investments.The target audience for this paper is academics or business professionals with an interest inwhy and how UN´s principles for responsible investments are adopted by the financialindustry.

The mutual fund industry in Sweden has grown rapidly over the past years. Research has been made on the topic for over 50 years, however there are still uncertainties about the determinants of fund performance. The purpose of this study was to examine what determines the risk-adjusted performance of mutual equity funds available to Swedish investors.  A side-purpose was included to examine to what extent the Efficient Market Hypothesis holds in Sweden. A simple random sample was conducted where 500 equity funds were included. From Refinitiv/Thomson Reuters Eikon Datastream fund characteristics were downloaded. To find the abnormal return of mutual equity funds, a hybrid Fama-French Carhart factor model was used which includes both domestic Swedish factors and global factors. The model was used to calculate the yearly risk-adjusted performance for each fund using 12 months return. This was denominated Alpha which was used as the dependent variable in the regression models. Further, to determine the characteristics which affect risk-adjusted performance two multiple regression models with six independent variables and three control variables are constructed. Further, a one sample t-test was conducted to test the market efficiency for mutual funds available to Swedish investors. Eight statistical hypotheses were created and tested in which two found a significant result which were that alpha differs from zero and Total Expense Ratio determines the risk-adjusted performance.   To conclude, findings showed only the character Total Expense Ratio determines risk-adjusted performance of mutual equity funds available to Swedish investors. In conclusion the control variables year, geographical focus and currency affect the fund performance. The study is an interesting aspect for Swedish investors and fund managers since the study implies deeper knowledge about the mutual fund industry in Sweden and therefore should be concerned by the variable TER to earn abnormal returns. Further, the study contributes with a theoretical discussion in line with the results concerning Efficient Market Hypothesis, the Diversification Effect and Modern Portfolio Theory. Conclusions are drawn based on our result that the Efficient Market Hypothesis does hold in the Swedish fund market. Although only one character determines the risk-adjusted performance and average investor should choose funds that follow the market, based on the skill level of average investors.

This thesis aims to investigate the benefits of international diversification from a Swedish perspective. It presents a comparative study of the performance of different portfolios based on their degree of international diversification with a focus on Swedish investors frame of reference. Such a study is motivated by the contradictory literature about portfolio diversification and information portfolio theory that advocate for a more concentrated portfolio. It focuses solely on comparing portfolios constituted with major indices of a representative sample including countries from different parts of the world. The different scales of those portfolios start from a divided part of the Swedish economy to end with a global portfolio. We observed that international diversification can outperform the domestic portfolios when considering risk and return. In addition, we observed that the best performing portfolios over the periods are systematically concentrated on emerging countries and that the high return of those emerging countries is often not associated with a correspondingly high standard deviation as it should be expected. The best levers of performance that we identified as a result of this comparative study are, first, the strategy consisting in focusing on the most concentrated portfolios in order to maximize the return and then trying to time the market, thanks to a specialized information collection strategy, but this bear a high undiversifiable risk. Or second, adopting an intentionally diversified portfolio and collecting information about the most promising emerging markets that will be then over weighted in the portfolio to lower the risk and higher the return. Lastly, the study recommend that home-biased investors should change their behavior and consider international investments when building a portfolio.