The work deals with the role of cost of debt capital in the process of market valuation. Analyses used as a basis for determining the cost of debt, simple and advanced methods of cost of debt capital estimation, as well as the issue of determining the value of debt itself are explained. Further, the work briefly examines the impact of aspects that are not directly related to the credit quality of the firm on its cost of debt; by these aspects, legal conditions for interest payments tax deductibility and third-party guarantees are meant. The pivotal part of the work designs its own model for debt rating and a premium over the risk-free rate of return estimation, with the premium consisting of a premium for expected and unexpected loss of a potential creditor.

The diploma thesis "Analysis of company's capital structure and its optimization options" explores the choice of financial resources of the company. The aim is to summarize the main theories of capital structure optimization and present empirical studies on the factors that affect the choice of structure. Then practice the idea of optimizing the capital structure on chosen company. The practical part deals firstly with the recent development of the capital structure in the industry in which selected company operates. Followed by analysis of the cost of capital of the company itself. The analysis of the capital structure showed that companies in the Czech Republic in the NACE 28 during the years 2003 to 2012 increased the use of equity. Companies rarely finance their needs by long-term debt, more used is short-term debt. The cost of capital calculations of chosen company showed that the model of average cost of capital corresponds to the theory of MM II. Recommendations for the company's increase debt to achieve lower cost of capital.

The purpose of this research is to examine whether U.S. banks that announced material operational risk loss (oprisk loss) events can still enjoy a lower cost of capital. I use the bank's credit rating as a proxy for the cost of debt capital, and the actual oprisk loss amounts announced by publicly traded U.S. banks for $10 million and over during the period 1998 to 2012 compiled from my own database. I also investigate whether the type of oprisk loss event and business line in which the loss event was incurred matter to credit rating agencies. I perform additional analysis to determine whether a downgrade in a bank's credit rating associated with the announcement of a material oprisk loss amount impacts the bank's reputation. This study focuses on the U.S. banking industry because of the increased market and regulatory scrutiny of oprisk losses; especially during the financial crisis of 2008 to 2010. The logistic analysis shows that banks' announcement of material oprisk loss amount is associated with a decline in credit ratings. The findings did not support the position that the type of loss event and business line in which the loss event was incurred matter to credit rating agencies. The results for the event study show that a downgrade in a bank's credit rating associated with an announcement of a material loss amount has a robust, statistically significant negative stock market reaction. Furthermore, the results reveal that the losses in market value significantly exceed the announced loss amounts associated with credit rating downgrades, indicating reputational loss to the banks. This research was limited to announcements of material oprisk loss amounts by U.S. banks publicly traded on major U.S. stock exchanges. Investigating the impact of announcements of material oprisk loss amounts by financial institutions publicly listed on major stock exchanges worldwide provides an avenue for future research. This study contributes to the literature on operational risk and the cost of debt capital as reflected in credit ratings by providing empirical evidence of the impact of oprisk losses on credit ratings of U.S. banks.

This thesis examines the impact of FTSE 100 index revisions on the various aspects of stock market quality and the cost of equity capital. Our study spans over the period 1986¿2009. Our analyses indicate that the index membership enhances all aspects of liquidity, including trading continuity, trading cost and price impact. We also show that the liquidity premium and the cost of equity capital decrease significantly after additions, but do not exhibit any significant change following deletions. The finding that investment opportunities increases after additions, but do not decline following deletions suggests that the benefits of joining an index are likely to be permanent. This evidence is consistent with the investor awareness hypothesis view of Chen et al. (2004, 2006), which suggests that investors¿ awareness improve when a stock becomes a member of an index, but do not diminish after it is removal from the index. Finally, we report significant changes in the comovement of stock returns with the FTSE 100 index around the revision events. These changes are driven mainly by noise-related factors and partly by fundamental-related factors. / International Fellows Program, USA, (IFP) and American-Mideast-Educational and Training Services, Inc. (AMIDEAST).

This thesis explores causal attribution statements on performance outcomes given in annual reports of UK listed rms. The objectives are three-fold. First, it analyses the nature and extent of attribution statements provided. Second, it explores corporate governance factors and rm-speci c characteristics that are related to the provision of attribution statements. Finally, it investigates the economic consequences of providing attribution statements by examining their association with the rm's cost of equity capital. Using data drawn from a sample of 142 UK rms listed on the London Stock Exchange, content analysis was used to measure the extent of attributions in the annual reports for the year 2006. The results show that the volume of attribution statement provision is generally low and variation across rms is low. Firms also show a strong tendency to explain performance with internal rather than with external reasons. The results from regression analysis show that the volume of attribution statements and the space given to internal and external attribution statements is associated with the proportion of non-executive directors, director share ownership, audit committee size, market value, gearing, pro tability and new share issues. With respect to the relationship between the attribution statements and the cost of capital, the PEG model was employed to estimate the cost of equity capital. The ndings indicate an association between attribution statement provision and the cost of equity capital, but only for rms with low analyst following. For these rms, more extensive performance explanations and more extensive internal explanations are associated with a higher cost of equity capital. However, attribution statements are unrelated to the cost of equity capital for rms with high analyst following. The thesis makes two contributions in the area of attribution determinants. First, it measures attribution provision with a measure that has not been previously applied in the literature to measure attribution statements. Second, it provides evidence on how rm-speci c characteristics and the rm's corporate governance mechanisms in uence the extent and the type of performance explanations provided by rms. The thesis makes four contributions regarding the e ect of attribution statements on the cost of capital. First, it uses a quantitative approach to directly estimate the cost of capital e ects of attribution statements. Second, it provides evidence that the association between attribution statements and the cost of equity capital is in uenced by an interaction between attribution statements and analyst following. Third, the thesis provides the rst evidence of the relationship between attribution statements and the cost of equity capital in a UK setting. Fourth, it provides evidence that the relationship between disclosure and the cost of equity capital is complex and is in uenced by interactions between disclosure and information intermediaries.

Dividend policy, its determinants, and its impact on firm value are of significant academic interest, and many theories and explanations have been posited on the subject over the years, but there has not been a universal agreement. This thesis examines the links between dividend policy, various aspects of stock liquidity and price informativeness. We study a sample of UK firms over the period from 1996-2013. We show that, on average, stocks of dividend payers have significantly lower bid–ask spread and a lower illiquidity ratio than their counterparts of non-dividend payers. We also find that stocks of high-dividend payers are more liquid than those of firms that pay low or no dividends. These findings are consistent with the predictions of asymmetric information that posit that paying dividends reveals inside information to the market and hence decreases the level of asymmetric information, leading to higher stock liquidity. In the subsequent analysis, we suggest and examine a new channel through which dividend policy can impact firm value. Specifically, we show that dividend payers are less exposed to shocks in the aggregate market liquidity than non-dividend payers. Similarly, we find that the systematic liquidity risk is negatively associated with amount of dividends. Finally, in the context of signalling and agency costs models, we show that dividends are negatively related to stock price informativeness and that this relationship is stronger for firms with lower stock liquidity. The findings imply that dividend policy can both affect and be affected by stock markets. / University of Bradford

The bias implied by conservatism in accounting and its impact on information risk in equity markets is the subject of considerable debate. On one hand, opponents of conservatism believe that any kind of biased information is actually misinformation and thus increases uncertainty. Perhaps most prominent among opponents of conservatism is the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The FASB contends that accounting information should be neutral—free from bias; a bias in favor of reporting either good or bad news is inconsistent with representational faithfulness and neutrality. On the other hand, proponents of conservatism point to incentives of management to manipulate financial statements by exaggerating apparent good news and/or hiding apparent bad news. Proponents argue that the bias implied by conservatism is necessary to offset the asymmetric reporting incentives of the firm’s management, and in so doing, conservatism allegedly improves information quality and reduces information risk. Finally, results of at least one recent study do not favor either position, suggesting that conservatism has no effect on information quality in equity market. This study finds that the bias implied by conservatism (bias in favor of reporting bad news) increases information risk in equity markets and consequently the cost of equity capital. Findings further indicate that sufficiently aggressive bias also increases information risk. That is, the market’s most aggressive firms, those reporting with a bias opposite that implied by conservatism, can reduce information risk by moving toward more neutral, unbiased reporting. Furthermore, the general effects of biased reporting (increased information risk) are consistent across all levels of information asymmetry among equity investors. These findings are interpreted as supporting the position of the FASB that biased accounting information increases information risk.

No description available.

In this dissertation, I investigate the economic consequences of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 158 (SFAS 158). SFAS 158 requires firms to move pension funding status from the footnotes to the balance sheet. Moving pension funding status from a footnote to the balance sheet improves the transparency and understandability of pension accounting, however it at the same time increases the pension liability recognized and decreases the shareholder's equity reported for firms with underfunded pension plans. I investigate whether firms take actions to mitigate the impact of SFAS 158. I also examine whether the market perceptions of the risk and cost of capital differ because of SFAS 158. I first find that while firms reduce the non-pension debt to equity ratio to minimize the cost of SFAS 158, they did not use discretionary accruals to offset the impact of SFAS 158. One interpretation of these findings is that firms' potential responses to the rule depend on the costs and benefits associated with that discretionary behavior. While accrual manipulations do not affect either real operations or cash flows, aggressive accrual manipulations can increase the probability of a qualified opinion from auditors, and financial penalties from regulators (SEC litigation). In contrast, real activity manipulation is more opaque than accounting earnings management, making it more difficult to detect by shareholders, SEC regulators, or auditors. I then find that the market perceived risk proxied by total equity risk increased after SFAS 158. However, I fail to find that the increased total equity risk is generally priced by the equity capital markets. Further analysis indicates that bond spread yield decreases after SFAS 158 for firms with underfunded pension plans, suggesting different behavior of debt investors and equity investors. This finding might be explained by the rich information environment specific to the debt market. Compared with the equity market, the debt market includes mainly sophisticated investors. Sophisticated investors have access to more firm-specific information than other investors. Given their access to potentially more informative data, the debt market response to SFAS 158 is different from the equity market. This dissertation contributes to the debate regarding the effectiveness of the pension accounting reforms incorporated in SFAS 158, and is useful to legislators, regulators, and researchers in assessing the anticipated costs and benefits of SFAS 158. In addition, this study lends support to the stream of research which documents that managers take actions to achieve certain financial reporting goals in response to new accounting rules. This study also provides insight into how firms take real actions to minimize the cost of having an under-funded defined benefit pension plan. Understanding these relationships have implications for interpreting pension numbers reported in the financial statements and designing pension accounting rules that prevent or minimize the possibility that managers take advantage of the complexity and subjectivity associated with pension accounting to influence reported earnings. Finally, this study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the importance and necessity of considering investor sophistication in studies on recognition vs. disclosure. / Business Administration/Accounting

Aquesta tesis investiga les fonts de valor de la banca relacional per les empreses. Després d'un primer capítol introductori, el Capítol 2 revisa les contribucions més rellevants en la literatura de la banca relacional. El Capítol 3 adreça la pregunta si la banca relacional és compatible amb la competència bancària, usant dades d'una enquesta a petites empreses d'Estats Units. El resultat principal és que les tecnologies de banca relacional poden ser usades en les mercats bancaris més competitius sempre i quan les empreses es comprometin a demanar prestat de un sol banc. El Capítol 4 proposa una estratègia empírica per tal de discriminar entre les prediccions teòriques oposades de tenir una relació banc-empresa exclusiva: estimar l'efecte diferencial en el cost i la disponibilitat del crèdit segons el grau de competència bancària. El Capítol 5 estudia l'efecte de la banca relacional en la rendibilitat de l'empresa. Pels dos últims capítols s'utilitzen dades de panel de 70,000 petites i mitjanes empreses espanyoles (1993-2004). Els resultats són consistents amb la visió que els bancs s'apropien majoritàriament del valor generat en les relacions properes amb les empreses sempre i quan no s'enfrontin a la competència d'altres prestadors. / This thesis investigates the sources of the value of lending relationships to the borrowing firm. After a first introductory chapter, Chapter 2 reviews the most relevant contributions to the relationship lending literature. Chapter 3 addresses the question of whether relationship lending is compatible with banking competition, using a survey of small firms in the United States. The main result is that relationship lending technologies are used in the most competitive banking markets as long as firms commit to borrowing from a single lender. Chapter 4 proposes an empirical strategy to disentangle the opposite theoretical predictions of exclusive bank-firm relationships: estimate the differential effect on cost and availability of credit depending on banking market concentration. Chapter 5 studies the effect of relationship lending on firm performance. For the last two chapters we use a panel dataset of 70,000 small and medium Spanish firms (1993-2004). The results are consistent with the view that banks appropriate most of the value generated through close relationships with its borrowers as long as they do not face competition from other lenders.