Frankfurt (Oder), Europa-Univ., Diss., 2004.

Poland's transition from a centrally-planned economy (CPE) to a market economy began in 1989. Building a market economy out of the failures of a CPE represents an unprecedented process in the history of economic development. At the core of the transition is the privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Many problems encountered during privatization are accounting related, and before privatization can occur valuation issues must be resolved. What has been the role of accounting in Poland's transition? Accounting is an interactive process that reflects and creates reality. The accounting process facilitates the calculation of the value created by a firm by attempting to trace the flow of resources through the value-creating process, and it identifies, measures, records, summarizes, and reports transactions. How these transactions are internalized determines how they flow through the accounting process, and, because the former SOEs are complex organizations in transition, decisions concerning when and how to record events can be diverse. The primary objective of this study is to provide insight into the accounting transition in Poland by addressing issues of ownership rights, valuation, financial reporting, and disclosure. The research question is: How is accounting transforming and being transformed in Poland? The research question is addressed in the context of the political and economic environment of three SOEs privatized and traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. To identify the role accounting played, I examined the financial reports of three of the first Polish SOEs privatized, employing case study methodology. The analysis indicates that accounting facilitated the transition by creating capital with the overstatement of assets. The overvalued assets will have to be absorbed in future periods, and subsequent research should address this problem.

Since 1994 when the Warsaw Stock Exchange has been acknowledged as a full member of World Federation of Exchanges and became one of the fastest developing security markets in the region, it has been hard to find any studies relating to the assets price performance on this exchange. That is why I decided to write this paper in which the Nobel price winning theory namely the Capital Asset Pricing Model has been tested. The Capital Asset Pricing Model (or CAPM) is an equilibrium model which relates asset’s risk measured by beta to its returns. It states that in a competitive market the expected rate of return on an asset varies in direct proportion to its beta. In this paper the performance of 100 stocks traded continuously on the main market in the years 2002-2006 has been tested. I have performed three independent tests of the CAPM based on different methods and techniques to better check the validity of the theory and then compared the results. As in the case of many other studies of the Capital Asset Pricing Model, this one didn’t find a complete support for the model but couldn’t reject some of its features either.

Subject of this thesis is initial public offering and it’s main goal is describing of obtaining external funds for company’s funding. In the first part of the thesis is description of basic structure of financial markets, especially stock markets. The term IPO and it’s advantages and disadvantages are described. The last part is focused on individual steps of IPO realization. This thesis is focused on evaluation of chosen company’s entry on stock market. Especially macro-economic presumptions for IPO, readiness of chosen company and choice of suitable market are evaluated.

Die vorliegende Studie entstand, um die langfristige Renditeentwicklung polnischer Aktien nach Börseneinführungen und Kapitalerhöhungen in den Jahren 1994-2008 zu untersuchen. Ein besonderes Augenmerk richtet sich dabei auf die Erkennung und Analyse der performancerelevanten Unternehmenseigenschaften sowie auf die Erklärung der festgestellten Marktanomalien mit Hilfe ausgewählter Modellansätze. Die empirischen Analysen wurden aus dem Blickwinkel eines Kleininvestors durchgeführt, wodurch die meisten Ergebnisse, neben dem wissenschaftlichen Wert, eine hohe Praxisrelevanz besitzen. Die Untersuchung von insgesamt 263 Börseneinführungen ergab, dass die Emissionsrenditen der meisten Aktien zwar signifikant positiv waren, längerfristig bauten sie sich aber ab. Am Ende des 36-sten Notierungsmonats wiesen sie insgesamt eine starke Underperformance auf. Dabei entwickelten sich die langfristigen marktbereinigten IPO-Renditen in den 90-er Jahren wesentlich schlechter, als nach der Jahrhundertwende. Die Analyse des Kursverhaltens nach 157 Kapitalerhöhungen durch Aktien- und Bezugsrechtsemissionen zeigte, dass innerhalb der dreijährigen Halteperiode die Performance der betrachteten Stichprobe von der Rendite des Gesamtmarktes nur geringfügig abweichte. Dabei entwickelten sich die Kurse von Aktien der kleineren Firmen wesentlich schlechter, als die Aktienkurse der hochkapitalisierten Unternehmen. / This study investigates the long-term stock return after initial public offerings and seasoned equity offerings occurred between 1994 and 2008. A particular attention is being paid to the identification and analysis of performance-relevant issuing firm characteristics and the explanation of the identified market anomalies by means of the preselected explanatory models. Since the empirical study was carried out from the small investor’s perspective, the majority of the obtained results provide not only a considerable scientific value, but also a strong relevance to the actual practice. The study examined 263 IPOs of common stocks and found an overwhelmingly positive initial return. However, this return vanished gradually on the long run, resulting in a high overall underperformance in 36 months after the first listing. In this respect, it is remarkable that the long-term returns of the IPO-stocks issued in the 1990s proved considerably lower than of those placed after 2000. The examination of the long-term stock price behaviour after 157 SEOs reveals only a tiny difference between the performance of the sample and the overall market return. Noteworthy is however the fact that equity issues conducted by smaller firms led usually to significantly poorer stock performance, than when equity was offered by large capitalized companies.

The folowing work deals with primary public issue of stocks - an external financial source of business activities. This source of finance is defined to the reader as: there are explained advantages and disadvantages of IPO Process, including supposition of succesful enter to the stock exchange. This work is concretly oriented on Pre-filing phase of a company for an enter to the stock exchange with the aim to set a procedure of IPO Process and apply it to a concrete company.

The goal of this thesis is to analyze and compare the main characteristics of Prague Stock Exchange and Warsaw Stock Exchange. At first the attention is paid to the concept of "stock exchange" in the legal system of both countries. A short summary of the history of both exchanges is followed by a description of the organizational structure and comparison of the basic conditions of exchange membership. The individual market segments are analyzed as well as conditions for admission of financial instruments to those segments. The thesis also outlines the essential characteristics of trading systems in Prague and in Warsaw together with a list of basic types of trades. The final comparative analysis is devoted to the type and volume of financial instruments traded on both exchanges and settlement of those trades.