Trenden med stort fokus på utdelning bland investerare håller i sig år 2019 och storbolagen förväntas betala ut över 250 miljarder svenska kronor. Bolag undviker att sänka sin utdelning, oavsett om det går bra eller dåligt, för att inte ge signaler om negativa framtidsutsikter. Den aktuella studien undersöker om den svenska aktiemarknaden, i enlighet med signaleringsteorin, följer de signaler som bolagsledningen sänder ut genom sin utdelning. Studien är en eventstudie och har en kvantitativ ansats med ett eventfönster på 11 dagar och en estimeringsperiod på 120 dagar. Urvalet består av 89 bolag från Stockholmsbörsens Large Cap lista. Resultatet visar en signifikant abnormal avkastning vid sänkt utdelning i linje med signaleringsteorin. Vid oförändrad eller höjd utdelning återfinns ingen signifikant abnormal avkastning och därmed finns inget stöd för signaleringsteorin. Slutsatsen är att den svenska aktiemarknaden följer signaleringsteorin vid sänkt utdelning men inte vid höjd. / The trend with a strong focus on dividends among investors is continuing in 2019 and the major companies are expected to pay out over SEK 250 billion. Companies avoid reducing their dividends in order to prevent signals of negative prospects. The current study investigates whether the Swedish stock market, in accordance with the signaling theory, follows the signals that corporate management sends out through its dividend. This study is an event study and has a quantitative approach with an event window of 11 days and an estimation period of 120 days. The sample consists of 89 companies from the Stockholm Stock Exchange's Large Cap list. The result show a significant abnormal return on reduced dividends in line with the signaling theory. With unchanged or increased dividends there is no significant abnormal return, hence there is no support for the signaling theory. The conclusion is that the Swedish stock market follows the signaling theory when the dividend is reduced, but not when increased.

This dissertation consists of two self-contained chapters that empirically examine bidder firm returns of U.S. companies in cross-border mergers and acquisitions. In chapter one I examine how cultural distance between bidder and target country impacts internalization benefits. The results suggest that shareholders are initially concerned about the acquisition in culturally distant countries, which outweighs any potential benefits from internalization. However, in the long-run we observe a significant reversal of these findings. In the second and third year following the announcement, greater cultural distance positively impacts the bidder firm's operating performance and the bidder experiences significant internalization benefits from technological know-how when cultural distance is great. Long-run calendar-time returns further support this finding. These results add to the existing literature by highlighting the importance of cultural distance when examining internalization benefits. In chapter two I attempt to explain abnormal bidder firms' returns in cross-border mergers and acquisitions by comparing the first-mover hypothesis to the late-mover hypothesis. I also study the reactions of rival firms to bidder firm announcements as a further test of the first-mover hypothesis. The findings suggest that cross-border acquisitions are generally value-destroying for strategic pioneers unless cultural distance between the U.S. and the target country is great. Further, I find positive announcement effects for followers as long as cultural distance is small.

本論文以自民國九十二年一月一日至民國九十九年十一月三十日止辦理私募增資之上市櫃公司為研究對象，把應募人分為內部人與非內部人，透過事件研究法與迴歸分析法分別探討私募宣告效果與影響折溢價幅度之因子。 首先，採事件研究法，討論內部人與非內部人在私募宣告時是否有異常報酬，並從內部人之累積異常報酬評估是否有內線消息產生，結果顯示，在宣告日前，不論內部人或非內部人之累積異常報酬皆呈現不顯著負值，因結果不顯著，故沒有證據顯示有內線消息。本研究之內部人私募宣告當天效果為負，且宣告日當天並沒有顯著之累積異常報酬，探究其原因，可能是在股東會決議日當天訊息尚未完全散佈，把時間拉長到宣告日後第二十一天，標準化累積異常報酬轉為顯著正值，整體來說,宣告效果是正的,只是反映的時間較長,此可能跟投資人接收訊息的快慢有關，也表示在宣告日後，看好公司未來發展，因此，累積異常報酬為正。 實證結果顯示，內部人之折溢價幅度與每股盈餘、私募金額取對數、負債對權益比有高度相關；此外，從非內部人折溢價樣本之迴歸結果，可看出每股盈餘、總資產報酬成長率、私募金額取對數對於折溢價幅度有顯著影響。綜上所述，影響內部人與非內部人折溢價因子之不同點在於總資產報酬成長率與負債對股東權益比，而共同點影響因子為每股盈餘與私募金額取對數。 / Collected from the Market Observation Post System in Taiwan Stock Exchange, the sample includes private placements of all listed and OTC firms in Taiwan stock market during January of 2002 to November of 2010. This study classifies investors into insider and non-insider, and then examines the announcement impact and the factors of price discount (premium) in private placement through the event study and the regression analysis. By employing event study, we find that insider and non-insider have insignificant negative accumulative abnormal return before the announcement date. Therefore, there is no evidence for early information leakage. The announcement stock price effect on the shareholders’ meeting is insignificantly negative. As a result, we can’t expect the investors would instantly, correctly respond to this information on the announcement date. However, the announcement stock effect, represented by the calculated accumulative abnormal return, for the long time is positive, and it implies the investors expect the firms to have good performance after the event. Empirical evidence in regression analysis shows that the private placements for Taiwan’s companies are selling at discounts (premiums) and it has high correlation with the company’s earning per share, the proceeds of private placement and the return on total assets growth rate for insiders. In addition, these three variables of the company are the significant explanatory variables for the magnitude of the discounts (premiums) of non-insiders.

In the first essay titled "The Information Role of Analysts' Contrarian Revisions," I study a special group of revisions: contrarian revisions, defined as recommendation changes that are inconsistent with sizable stock price movements during the past week. I find that contrarian revisions are relatively more informative than trending revisions. In particular, contrarian revisions are associated with a both statistically and economically larger post-announcement drift. I also find contrarian downgrades are less likely to be issued by all-star analysts and analysts with more experience. After implementation of Regulation RD, the market reaction to contrarian revisions issued by all-stars significantly decreases, indicating private information contained in contrarian recommendations has declined. Overall, our results suggest analyst recommendations are important information sources for market participants. In the second essay titled "Market Reaction to Earnings When Investors Disagree," I investigate how the divergence of opinions between individual and institutional investors affects stock price movements around public news events, specifically earnings announcements. I use a discrete static market equilibrium model to illustrate that divergence of investors' opinions has a significant impact on stock price movements around earnings announcements. Specifically, the divergence of opinion has a negative relation with the immediate market reaction but a positive relation with the subsequent stock price drift. I also investigate trading volume around earnings announcements to explore how traders respond to changes in the divergence of investors' opinions. Empirical evidence supports the model implications and indicates announcement trading volume decreases inversely to the divergence of opinions.

This paper uses event study methodology to present evidence that acquirer announcement effects for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the American Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry are insignificant. In order to reach this conclusion, this paper both examines existing literature on the topic and manipulates available data on public companies in the M&E industry. It also uses this data to investigate the extent to which different factors influence the acquirer announcement effects. These factors include: the type of financing used for the deal, recent mega-merger failures in the M&E industry, M&A strategy (expansion vs. diversification), as well as target size, country, and sub- industry. The results show that none of these factors have a significant impact on announcement effects.

Many studies have been performed on the short- and long-run abnormal returns to acquirers in acquisition attempts, but the topic of bidding wars is relatively unexplored. This piece performs an in-depth analysis of daily returns to both the public winners and losers in bidding war situations. It provides a counterargument to earlier findings that found that winners in bidding wars performed poorly compared to losers. I also fill in the gap in the analysis of short-term returns to paired winners and losers during and surrounding the bidding war. I find that winners perform significantly better than losers during certain critical periods in the bidding war, and this appears to signal the increased likelihood of the winner’s success. However, in the short-term, the market consistently misjudges the direction of the long-run benefits of the acquisition to the winner.

M&A has for decades been an important topic within the corporate world as well as financial research, due to its performance and the impact it generates. The main objective of this study is to explore the effect of M&A announcements on the short-term performance of acquiring firms on the Swedish stock market. By conducting an event study with a sample of 194 M&As in various industries from 2007-01-01 to 2018-02-07, we are able to retrieve abnormal returns, analysing cumulative abnormal returns in order to measure the effect the announcements have on the stock price. Three performance factors are included in order to get an understanding of the potential impact they have, and if so, how strong that impact is. The performance factors are (1) payment method, (2) diversified versus focused M&As, and (3) cross-border versus domestic M&As. The empirical findings tell us that the abnormal returns are significant for most industries, and to a great extent positive. The performance variables only show significance for cash as a payment method where it generates a negative effect on the main event window (-1, +1). With these findings we hope to contribute to existing research by creating higher awareness to society and organisations about the performance M&As bring.

[pt] Esta pesquisa centra-se no estudo do tema O Deus de Jesus de Nazaré anunciado ao sujeito pós-moderno. Busca-se desenvolver o tema a partir das cristologias dos teólogos Edward Schillebeeckx e Jurgen Moltmann. A referida pesquisa visa à interação entre as imagens existenciais de Deus apresentadas pelos teólogos Schillebeeckx e Moltmann na práxis de Jesus de Nazaré, a fim de emoldurar bases para um resgate da genuína imagem humanizada e relacional de Deus para a vida do ser humano hodierno. O trabalho se desenvolve em quatro etapas, que buscam estruturar esta tese: na primeira descreve-se uma panorâmica construção da imagem existencial do ser humano, desde o paradigma racionalista moderno ao universo pós-moderno; na segunda propõe-se vislumbrar a face do Deus Abba de Edward Schillebeeckx em Jesus de Nazaré; na terceira objetiva-se refletir sobre a face do Deus sofredor de Jürgen Moltmann em Jesus de Nazaré e na quarta, retomam-se os principais pontos das reflexões dos capítulos anteriores e pretende-se, a partir das leituras cristológicas de Schillebeeckx e Moltmann, propor, pelo enriquecimento peculiar de seus postulados, um resgate da imagem existencial do Deus anunciado por Jesus de Nazaré como modelo para uma reprodução ética fecunda à nossa época atual. As leituras cristológicas dos referidos teólogos propõem a imagem de um Deus sensibilizado, ávido por relacionar-se graciosamente com as pessoas e o mundo a sua volta. Uma sadia imagem a ser reproduzida pelo ser humano pós-moderno. / [en] This research focuses on the study of the topic The God of Jesus of Nazareth announced to the post-modern subject. The aim is to develop the theme from the Christologies of the theologians Edward Schillebeeckx e Jurgen Moltmann. Such research is aimed at the interaction between the existential images of God presented by Schillebeeckx and Moltmann on the praxis of Jesus of Nazareth with the intention of frame foundation for a rescue of the genuine humanized and relational image of God for the life of the modern human being. The work is developed in four phases that intends to structure this thesis: In a first moment is described a panoramic construction of the existential human being image, from the modern rationalist paradigm to the post-modern universe; In a second moment is proposed to glimpse the face of the God Abba of Edward Schillebeeckx in Jesus of Nazareth; The third moment aims to reflect upon the face of the suffering God of Jürgen Moltmann in Jesus of Nazareth and in the fourth moment the main points of the previous chapters s reflections are taken up and it is intended to propose by the christological readings of Schillebeeckx and Moltmann and their postulates s peculiar enrichment a rescue of the existential image of the God announced by Jesus of Nazareth as a model for a fruitful ethical reproduction to our current time. The christological reading of these theologians proposes an image of a touched God who is eager to relate graciously with the people and the world around himself. A wholesome image to be reproduced by the post-modern human being.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) offer a framework to shed a new light on whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance enhances corporate financial performance (CFP). Using ASSET4 data as a measurement of CSR performance in a sample of worldwide deals for the period 2004-2017, I find evidence that the environmental performance of target firms enhances acquirers’ shareholder wealth. No influence is found for different value implications in different institutional contexts. Additionally, shareholders reward (disvalue) acquirers even stronger if the target is outperforming (underperforming) the acquirer in environmental performance. These findings suggest that shareholders reward the acquirer for making environmental investments and support the stakeholder view, which indicates that fulfilling stakeholder interests can be combined with shareholder wealth creation.

由於科技進步、國與國之間的監管制度放寬，使得產業邁向全球化，進而帶動金融業的跨國併購浪潮，並開啟了併購領域之實證研究。過去學者對於銀行併購動機與併購績效之研究，所探討的因子層面有所不同，因此，本研究欲探討影響銀行進行跨國併購動機的國家特性差異，對主併銀行的併購績效有何影響。 由SDC併購資料庫選取2002年至2014年，已開發和新興市場國家之商業銀行跨國併購案件作為研究樣本，以事件研究法探討主併國與被併國之國家特性因子，如：經濟規模、經濟成長率、金融產業發展程度，以及兩國間心理距離等，對主併銀行宣告效果之影響。 結果發現僅目標國之金融產業發展程度與主併銀行宣告效果呈顯著負相關，即併購金融發展程度較低的國家銀行，能為主併銀行獲得更多成長機會，故市場對於主併銀行短期的績效反應較為正面，主併銀行擁有正的異常報酬。 此實證結果符合「獲利機會理論 (Focarelli and Pozzolo, 2001b) 」故當銀行選擇併購策略時，建議可考慮往金融產業發展程度較低的新興市場國家，以獲取更多的成長機會與獲利空間。 / With the advancement of technology and deregulation between countries, industries around the world have entered into a globalized era. Therefore, waves of cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) among financial institutions have opened new area in M&A empirical research. Different factors were used in previous literatures on M&A motives and performance. As a result, this study examines whether country characteristic factors, which influence acquirer’s M&A motives, have impact on acquirer’s announcement effect. We use event study methodology with 105 final samples, which made of listed commercial banks in developed and emerging market countries (EMC) between 2002 and 2014, to analyze the effects of country characteristic factors (like GDP, GDP growth, financial development, and psychic distance) on the acquirer’s short-term performance. According to our results, we find that: First, on average, the acquirer’s announcement effect of EMC is higher than developed countries, but it is not statistically significant. Second, only the degree of financial development in target countries has significant impact on acquirer’s announcement effect, which is consistent with profit opportunity theory. Therefore, we suggest that acquirers can target commercial banks in financially underdeveloped countries to obtain more growth and profit opportunity.