The purpose of this study is to access the development of The Link REIT as a kind of REITs in Hong Kong. By evaluating the performance of The Link REIT, its shopping centres and the customer satisfaction, implication of The Link's management to the REIT, the shopping centres and even the society were identified. In this research, the evaluation for performance of The Link REIT would be divided into three scopes. Firstly, the performance of REIT would be evaluated by analyzing the indices. Secondly, the attributes of The Link's shopping centres would be evaluated by analyzing the determinants of rental income. Last but not least, customer satisfaction would be evaluated by measuring the service quality based on SERVQUAL instrument. The first two scopes of evaluation would be mainly based on the secondary data. Primary data obtained by questionnaire survey would be collected for the evaluation of customer satisfaction. After collecting and analyzing all data, position impacts of The Link's management was identified to the performance of REIT and the attributes of its shopping centres. In contrary on the first two evaluations, customers including both of the visitors and tenants were found dissatisfied to the empathy attributes of The Link's shopping centres. The customer expectation valued greater than the customer perception. In other words, The Link failed to understanding or providing what customers need. Upon conducting the regressive analysis of the secondary data, contradiction between the development of The Link and public expectation was finally concluded. The Link aimed at maximizing the interest or benefits for the shareholders while visitors or tenants requested The Link to ensure the low price of products and low rental charge. In considering the historical responsibility of HKHA, The Link was being over-expected in performing its social responsibility. To be a responsible asset manager and also a social company, recommendation or suggestions were made based on the analysis. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Financial contagion, in this study, refers to spreading of crisis across markets in different locations. The observable consequence is usually in the form of increase in co-movement of asset prices in two markets after a crisis event. The causes of financial contagion have been studied for over twenty years, however, up till now, results have been mixed. One unsettled issue is whether market fundamentals alone can explain financial contagion. Pure fundamental based explanation suggests that the financial, economic and trade linkages are solely responsible for the transmission of crisis across markets. On the other hand, the behavioral finance researchers propose that herding behavior also plays an important role in explaining financial contagion. This issue cannot be easily resolved since it is difficult to empirically distinguish linkage effect and herding behavior. This thesis contributes to this unresolved issue by examining financial contagion in the stock market and indirect real estate market. In the stock market, both fundamental linkages and herding are likely to exist. However some securities are less prone to herding than others. Herding across international markets is likely to be less serious when there is less information asymmetry between investors and management. In addition, compared with foreign investors, local investors are more confident in the link between market fundamentals and the corresponding securities. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are likely to suffer from less information asymmetry problem since the REITs market has more stringent regulatory requirements for information disclosure. Furthermore, the pricing of real estate asset, the main type of assets held by the REITs, often requires local knowledge. Local investors investing in REITs are less likely to mimic the investor behavior in another overseas REITs market. Listed property companies also share some similarities with REITs, although they are less immune to herding compared with REITs as information disclosure is less stringent for listed property companies. Since the asset prices of real estate are affected by the economic performance, fundamental linkages amongst all indirect real estate still likely to exist and are similar to other types of listed companies. If market fundamental is the only source of financial contagion (i.e. no herding), financial contagion in the global stock and indirect real estate markets should be similar. This thesis uses the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) as the crisis event to examine financial contagion across the world’s major equity markets. Our empirical results show that financial contagion is stronger in the entire stock markets than in the indirect real estate markets and that financial contagion is the weakest in the REITs markets, which support the herding behavior hypothesis and reject the pure fundamental explanation. This reasoning does not require indirect real estate to be totally immune from herding. All that is needed is that indirect real estate is less prone to herding compared with the common stocks. Herding behavior can be rational or irrational. The latter refers to revision of asset prices by following the pricing behavior of other markets irrespective of market fundamentals. Our empirical evidence cannot reject irrational herding behavior in the indirect real estate market since contagion effect becomes stronger when windows of observations are lengthened. That is when more time was allowed for investors to react to the pricing behaviors in other markets, financial contagion became stronger. However, no similar results were found in the stock market. This impl\ies that compared with the indirect real estate market, herding is more serious in the stock market but such herding is also more rational than that in the indirect real estate market. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Master / Master of Philosophy

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published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Title: Investigations on the real estate market, what are the main factors influencing the performance of the French Real Estate Investments Trusts? Problem: In 2003, the French government implemented a new tax-exempt structure in the real estate market. Like REITs in the United States, SIICs are listed French companies that aim to improve the performance of real estate stocks on Paris Stock Exchange. The problem consists of determining the performance of the SIICs’ portfolio, identifying the major influences of economic factors and capturing financial behaviour in asset portfolio management. Purpose: Recently, the subprime crisis has largely brought out uncertainty of financial actors in the real estate sector. In this context, we try to apprehend the performance of these specific SIICs investment vehicles related to financial, economic and managerial influences, by quantifying their stock performance in a five-year time frame. Methodology: A deductive approach guides our thesis to emphasize our research question. Our business strategy entails positivism and objectivism considerations and relies on a case analysis research design using the multifactor model. Besides, the data collection process is following a quantitative approach of twenty chosen French SIICs between 2003 and 2007. Result / Conclusion: Even if the multifactor model used by the authors may be viewed as unspecified, useful results can still be extracted and analysed. The hotel & LDG sector slightly performs better than others depending on the strategy of investment and the state of economy. Long-term interest rate acts as the principal explanatory factor. Investors do not necessarily respond in favour of the general market confidence indicator.

In the absence of taxes and transactions costs, there can be no benefit to corporate reorganization from a financial standpoint, but ‘real world’ limitations and frictions do provide additional value that is gained through divestitures in terms of focus and financial flexibility. Herein, the corporate divestiture decision is analyzed to determine the motivation for a parent company either to cleave its offspring directly to the external capital market in an equity carve-out or to distribute the shares to the existing shareholders in a tax-free spin-off. Cash flow performance, asymmetric information, relative size of the divestiture, and relatedness of the parent’s and subsidiary’s operations are all found to contribute significantly to the divestiture decision. In Canada, an alternate form of security, known as the income trust unit, has become popular for corporate reorganizations, either through an initial public offering or as a conversion of shares. The flow-through structure of income trusts currently allows avoidance of corporate taxation to offer higher pre-tax returns to retail investors, in a market setting where yield is increasingly equated with value. To determine placement of these securities in the market, the risk of the income trust organizational form is analyzed and compared to the standard corporate form. Further, a number of publicly known characteristics of the income trusts can predict the relative risk of this type of investment. In recent ‘hot markets’ for these securities, proof is uncovered that unsuitable firms have been migrating to this sector, but valuation of the investments in this sector has remained fair and full. Although pending legislation will discontinue the tax-exempt status of income trusts in 2011, during their tenure these securities have improved the Canadian market. Based on the data analysis herein, all types of divestitures studied have been predicted to provide commensurate value with respect to risk depending on the nature of the subsidiary. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2007-08-15 11:20:20.465

No abstract available. / Thesis (LL.M.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1999.

Les situations de gestion sont souvent complexes. Il faut faire appel à différents professionnels lorsque l'on souhaite accroître la valeur de son patrimoine. Les protagonistes de la gestion, qu'ils soient notamment mandataires, fiduciaires, salariés ou dirigeants sociaux, interviennent dans un cadre légal qui leur est propre. Le propriétaire use de son droit de propriété afin de conclure les contrats qui lui permettent de valoriser ses biens comme il l'entend. Ce travail porte sur la gestion conventionnelle des biens d'un bénéficiaire capable du vivant de celui-ci. Le gestionnaire gère les biens sur la durée et ignore l'état du patrimoine à la fin de la gestion. Le juriste français aborde spontanément la question sous l'angle de la représentation ou de la propriété qu'il s'agisse de la fiducie ou des trusts. Cette technique anglo-saxonne repose sur un rapport d'obligations particulier unissant le trustee au bénéficiaire qu'il est intéressant d'examiner afin de mieux comprendre la gestion. L'imputation systématique des actes du gestionnaire sur le patrimoine du bénéficiaire n'est pas souhaitable. C'est pourquoi l'hypothèse de travail est celle d'une gestion sans représentation. L'analyse du droit positif menée en première partie montre que, nonobstant la représentation, une technique de gestion efficace sur la durée repose sur les pouvoirs d'organisation et de direction conférés au gestionnaire. Le premier est celui d'accomplir une action c'est-à-dire un acte ou une série d'actes juridiques ou matériels. Le second permet d'apprécier l'opportunité d'une action. La seconde partie est consacrée à la recherche d'un cadre juridique adapté à la gestion.

The thesis examines Canada's public pension system and its economic impact. It discusses the evolution of Canada's public pension plans and by reviewing reports commissioned by the Quebec, Ontario, and federal governments as well as other studies, it indicates the possible direction that the system may take in the future. A two-period model of consumption planning is employed to illustrate the effects of social security programs on saving. A neoclassical growth model is then considered to see what criteria are used to determine the optimal rate of saving. By referring to the Cambridge economists' views on this subject, possible weaknesses in the neoclassical theory are exposed and the implications for economic growth are established. The empirical part of the thesis attempts to resolve two important questions, namely, the extent to which public pension plans have affected personal saving in Canada and the role of public pension benefits in the retirement decision.

The Social Security Act 1991 incorporates the general legal meaning of property in its definition of an asset, for the purpose of the pension means test. This creates the opportunity for pension applicants to argue that assessable assets held by them should be reduced by the amount of any equitable proprietry rights held by others in the assets. The Federal Court has held in Kintominas v Secretary, DSS and in Kidner v Secretary, DSS that equitable proprietry claims under remedial doctrines, such as under the constructive trust doctrine discussed in Baumgartner v Baumgartner are to be regarded as property even though there has been no judicial declaration of their existence, no dispute between the legal owner and the person claiming an equitabe interest, an no unconscionable abuse of title rights by the legal owner. This thesis argues that the Federal Court’s approach is not the preferable one, for three main reasons. The first relates to the changing nature of the constructive trust to a necessary element. The second is that, at a time when the constructive trust in Australia is in transition from the traditional institutional conception to a remedial paradigm along North American lines, the beneficial interest should no longer be viewed as existing independently of a judicial decree. The third argument is that, even if an equitable interest under a remedial constructive trust is accepted as existing independently of a curial declaration, it cannot be valued for the purposes of the assets test.