The dividend policy and the distribution of cash dividend can be of interest to the investors from many angles. Consequently, many theories have been built on the relevance of dividend policy and there are several theories proposing that dividends increase shareholder value. However, the most famous theory on dividend policy might be Miller and Modigliani's dividend irrelevance theory which implies that the dividend policy does not affect shareholder value. Although investors are concerned with shareholder value they are also concerned with achieving the highest possible return with the lowest volatility (risk). As many studies have focused on the dividend policy, especially dividend yield or the dividend payout ratio, and its relation with stock price movement we felt that there was a lack of information regarding the relation between return volatility and cash dividends. This resulted in the following research question: Does a change in cash dividend affect stock return volatility on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm? Answering this research question is the main purpose of the research. Additionally, the relationship between changes in cash dividend and return volatility will be compared in the different size segments that are to be found on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm. The study is quantitative with a deductive approach where historical data ranging from 2006-2012 has been gathered. Two measures of return volatility has been used, beta and standard deviation of return. Statistical tests have been conducted in an approach to answer the research question, mainly correlation tests and logistic regression analysis. No correlation between changes in cash dividend and changes in beta, nor changes in standard deviation were found. The same results were found when examining small, mid and large cap individually. In the logistic regression analysis no evidence was found that changes in dividend could explain changes in return volatility. Contrary to changes in dividend, the results indicate that the size of the company can explain changes in return volatility. Specifically, large cap companies explain increases in return volatility better than companies in the small cap segment. Therefore, the research question is concluded with no, a change in cash dividend does not affect stock return volatility. The findings could also be argued to be in support of the dividend irrelevance theory. Furthermore, the conclusion implies that investors need not regard the dividend policy when diversifying their portfolios. Additionally, managers need not be worried that a change in dividend policy should affect return volatility.

In this paper the effect of capital structure on profitability has been investigated among Swedish companies. The essay intends to examine how the relationship between debt and profitability appear among Swedish companies and if the relationship differs between industries. The purpose is to find out how debt affects the profitability of Swedish companies. A quantitative approach has been applied. The selection was made among companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm, which resulted in a sample of 207 companies. Several regression analyzes has been formed, based on the independent variable debt-ratio and the dependent variables profit margin, pre-tax profit margin, operating margin, return on assets and return on equity. The variables were calculated using data from each company’s annual reports for the entire investigation period, year 2009-2013. The theories in the study are the capital structure irrelevance theory, trade-off, agency theory and the pecking-order theory. The scientific papers which has served as reference for this paper is a study made by Addae et al., where the relationship between debt and profitability were examined among listed companies in Ghana and a study made by Panno, where a similar relationship were examined among companies in the UK and Italy. The results indicates positive relationships between debt-ratio and profit margin, pre-tax profit margin and operating margin. This result is in parity with that from Pannos investigation and it seems that Swedish companies tend to take advantage of the tax-shield, giving support for the trade-off theory. However, regarding the relationship between debt-ratio and return on assets as well as equity, no significant relationship could be found. This means that it is not possible to say that more debt causes changes in return on assets or return on equity among Swedish companies. Furthermore, regarding the relationships between industries, it has only been possible to find significant relationships in 2 out of 17 industries and therefore no valid conclusions could be drawn concerning that question. / I denna uppsats har kapitalstrukturens effekt på lönsamhet undersökts bland svenska företag. Uppsatsen ämnar besvara hur sambandet mellan skuldsättning och lönsamhet ser ut bland svenska företag och om sambandet skiljer sig mellan olika branscher. Syftet är att ta reda på hur skuldsättningen påverkar lönsamheten i svenska företag. För att uppfylla syftet har en kvantitativ forskningsansats tillämpats. Urvalet har gjorts utifrån noterade företag på Nasdaq OMX Stockholm som uppfyllt tre villkor, vilket har resulterat i ett urval om 207 stycken företag. För att besvara frågeställningen har det genomförts regressionsanalyser som baserats på den oberoende variabeln skuldandel och de beroende variablerna vinst-, bruttovinst- och rörelsemarginal samt räntabilitet på eget och totalt kapital. Beräkningen av variablerna har föregåtts av en omfattande datainsamling där grunddata hämtats in från de aktuella företagens årsredovisningar för hela undersökningsperioden, åren 2009-2013. De centrala vetenskapliga teorierna som behandlats i undersökningen är kapitalstrukturens irrelevansteori, trade-off, agentteorin och pecking-order. De vetenskapliga artiklar som fungerat som referensram för uppsatsen är en studie av Addae m.fl., där sambandet mellan skuldsättning och lönsamhet har undersökts bland noterade företag i Ghana och en studie av Panno, där ett liknande samband undersökts bland företag i Storbritannien och Italien. Resultaten pekar på positiva samband mellan skuldandel och vinst-, bruttovinst- och rörelsemarginal. Detta ligger i linje med de resultat som Panno funnit och talar för att svenska företags kapitalstruktur förklaras av trade-off teorin, som utgår ifrån irrelevansteorins skattesköld i förhållande till konkurskostnader. Vad gäller sambandet mellan skuldandel och räntabilitet på eget och totalt kapital har inget signifikant samband kunnat styrkas. Det innebär att det inte går att säga att en högre skuldsättning bland svenska företag leder till en förändring i varken avkastning på eget eller totalt kapital. Vidare gäller att på branschnivå har det bara gått att finna signifikanta samband mellan skuldsättning och lönsamhet i 2 av 17 branscher.

Payout policies is one of the most discussed topics in corporate finance. Since Miller & Modigliani (1961) dividend irrelevance theory, which was based on perfect markets, many theories have been developed in order to incorporate market imperfections to payout decisions. Numerous scholars have been trying to explain why companies pay dividends, whether they should compensate investors with alternative methods such as share repurchases or not distribute cash at all. The theme has gained lots of attention during the 21-st century driven by the subprime financial crisis in 2008 and mostly recently, in 2020, due to economic impacts brought by the Covid 19 pandemic. Another important aspect that makes the study of payout policy relevant in the 21-st century is the unique impacts of unveiled trends such as globalization and volatile markets, increased importance of ecology and sustainability, emergency of fast growth firms (mainly in the Tech industry) and change characteristics of listed firms. Globally there is a tendency of reduction in the number of listed firms and also deterioration in the quality of earnings. Additionally, there is no consensus about which factors influence a firm propensity of distributing cash to shareholders, which makes the topic very intriguing. Previous research has been conducted mainly within US firms. Few studies have been conducted regarding payout policies in the Nordic countries and most of them give little attention to share repurchases and payout policy determinants. Therefore, we decided to conduct a study regarding the patterns and determinants of payout policy in the 21-st century with focus on the Nordic countries. The purposes of the study are: first, to understand the pattern of payout policies in the Nordic countries during the 21-st century and second determine if there is a relationship between a number of firm’s selected factors and firm’s payout policy. As a sub purpose we intend to examine whether the Covid 19 pandemic had any effect on Nordic firm’s payout policies. The factors investigated, namely: debt, profit, retained earnings, growth opportunities, cash holdings, size and age were identified through a detailed literature review. We collected data from Thomson Reuters DataStream Eikon covering the period between 2000 and 2020 for 1,153 firms from all Nordic countries: Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The study follows a quantitative research method with a deductive approach, and we have based the theoretical framework on the following theories: Miller-Modigliani dividend irrelevance theory, Signaling theory, Agency theory, Life-cycle theory and Substitution and Flexibility hypotheses. In order to determine whether there is a relationship between the companies selected factors and the payout ratios we conducted ordinary least square (OLS) correlation analysis. Additional regression analysis was conducted to verify possible impacts of Covid 19 on Nordic payout policies. Results indicate that some firms’ selected characteristics such as debt, size and age have an impact on Nordic firms’ payout policy during the 21-st century. Larger firms with lower debt are more willing to pay cash dividends, while older firms tend to present higher levels of share repurchase. Firms’ characteristics showed no impact on changes in payout ratios during the initial period of Covid 19.

Dividend policy is widely researched in financial management, but determining whether it affects the market price per share is difficult. There has been much published on the subject, which presented theories such as the Modigliani, Miller, Gordon, Lintner, Walter and Richardson propositions and the relevance and irrelevance theories. However, little research has been done on the impact of dividend policy on shareholders’ wealth while considering the short- and long-run effects. The Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) was used to describe the short-run and long-run dynamics or the adjustment of the cointegrated variables towards their equilibrium values in South Africa. This study attempts to explain the effect of dividend policy on the market price per share. A sample of 46 companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) was selected for the period 1995-2010. Three variables were used, namely the market price per share, the dividend per share and the earnings per share. The market price per share was used as a proxy in measuring shareholders’ wealth and the dividend per share was used as a proxy in measuring the dividend policy. Fixed and random effects models were applied to panel data to determine the relation between dividend policy and market price per share. The fixed effects method was used to control the stable characteristics of the companies over a fixed period. The random effects model was applied when the companies’ characteristics differed. Results for both models indicated that dividend yield is positively related to market price per share, while earnings per share do not have a significant impact on the market price per share. To test the strength of the long-run relationship, the VECM was applied. The coefficient for dividend per share in the co-integrating equation was positive, while the coefficient for earnings per share was negative. This confirms previous research findings. The results suggest that there is a long-run relationship between dividend per share and market price per share. The Granger causality test indicates there is bi-directional Granger causality between market price per share and dividend per share in South Africa. Therefore dividend policy does have a significant long-run impact on the share price and therefore provides a signal about the company’s financial success. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Financial Management / Unrestricted

It has long been known that companies can finance themselves with the help of equity or debt. Since Modigliani and Miller’s theories of capital structure and its impact on performance, several studies have continued to investigate the phenomenon of capital structure. Using previous research on capital structure as well as the irrelevance theory, trade-off theory and pecking order theory, researchers are constantly examining how capital structure affects companies, what affects the capital structure, and which financing is best suited for their specific company.This study intends to investigate how the capital structure is affected by companies’ profitability, growth, and economical cycle fluctuations in Sweden. The study examines Swedish companies listed on the Nasdaq Main Market Stockholm in the branch of industry, raw materials and real estate. The study sample consists of 109 companies that are examined over a ten-year period between 2010-2019. The study conducts regression analyzes of key ratios’ debt / equity ratios as a dependent variable, as well as ROE, ROA, profit margin, turnover growth, employment growth and GDP gaps as independent variables.The study concludes that cyclical fluctuations affect companies’ capital structure in the branch of industry. However, it could not be ensured that cyclical fluctuations affect companies in the raw materials industry or the real estate industry. The study measured that ROA correlates negatively with the capital structure of the branch of industry, as well as the real estate industry. Significance for the variable profitability measured with ROA could not be demonstrated. The variable ROE was only significant for the real estate, industry and positively correlated with the debt-equity ratio. Profit margin was significant and positively correlated for the branch of industry, and it was also identified that the profit margin was significant for the real estate industry, but the results were negligible. The same negligence was discovered for the significant variable for sales growth for the raw materials industry, while no significance was achieved for the branch of industry and the real estate industry. Finally, the variable employment growth was only significant for the real estate industry, where a positive correlation was shown with the debt-equity ratio. / Det är länge känt att företag kan finansiera sig med hjälp av eget kapital eller belåning.  Sedan Modigliani och Miller teorier om kapitalstruktur och dess påverkan på resultatet har flertal studier fortsatt undersökt fenomenet kapitalstruktur. Med hjälp av tidigare forskning om irrelevansteorin, trade-off teorin och pecking order teorin undersöker forskarna ständigt om hur kapitalstruktur påverkar företagen, vad som påverkar kapitalstrukturen, samt vilken finansieringsmetod som är bäst lämpad för sitt specifika företag.Denna studie avser att undersöka hur kapitalstrukturen påverkas av företagens lönsamhet, tillväxt, samt konjunktursvängningarna i Sverige. Studien undersöker svenska företag noterade på Nasdaq Main Market Stockholm i branscherna industri, råvaror och fastighet. Studiens urval består av 109 företag som undersöks under en tioårsperiod mellan 2010-2019. Studien genomför regressionsanalyser på nyckeltalen skuldsättningsgrad som beroende variabel, samt ROE, ROA, vinstmarginal, omsättningstillväxt, anställningstillväxt och BNP-gap som oberoende variabler.Studien kommer fram till att konjunktursvängningar påverkar företagens kapitalstruktur i industribranschen. Det kunde inte säkerställas att konjunktursvängningar påverkar företag i råvarubranschen eller fastighetsbranschen. Studien uppmätte att ROA korrelerar negativt med industri- och fastighetsbranschens kapitalstruktur. Det kunde inte uppvisas signifikans för lönsamhetsvariablerna för ROA. ROE var enbart signifikant för fastighetsbranschen och korrelerade positivt med skuldsättningsgraden. Vinstmarginal var signifikant och positiv korrelerade för industribranschen, det identifierades även att vinstmarginalen var signifikant för fastighetsbranschen, men resultat var försumbart. Samma försumbarhet upptäcktes för den signifikanta tillväxtvariabeln för omsättningstillväxt för råvarubranschen, medan det inte uppnåddes signifikans för industribranschen och fastighetsbranschen. Slutligen var tillväxtvariabeln för anställningstillväxt enbart signifikant för fastighetsbranschen där det uppvisades en positiv korrelation med skuldsättningsgraden.