The private equity (PE) industry has been growing over the recent years and a large amount of capital is invested in Nordic private equity funds. Buyouts which are focusing on a leverage effect, known as the leverage buyout (LBO), have transformed public companies into private equity owned portfolio companies. The purpose of this report is to describe and analyze the current state of the leverage buyout transaction in the Nordic market, with focus on the factors which are affecting the value creation process. Through an abductive approach, data has been collected from interviews with representatives from PE companies and banks with experience of LBO transactions in both the Eu-ropean and the Nordic market. The objective was to examine the factors which are affect-ing the value creation process and to examine why LBO transactions in the Nordic PE market has generated higher EBITDA multiples than in the European market. The study shows that PE companies operating in the Nordic market tends to appreciate operational and organizational value rather than multiple values. Nordic PE companies have in general exercised longer investments in the portfolio companies compared to European PE companies. The long term investments implementation has enabled the Nordic PE companies to accomplish entrepreneurial actions in a further extent. Nordic PE companies have also been successful in their streamlining process of the organ-ization structure, which partly explains the greater EBITDA multiples generated in the Nordic market. Another significant factor is the favorable tax regulation in Sweden which has been beneficial for the whole Nordic PE market. The current financial condition has affected both the activity and the transaction structure of LBO’s in the Nordic market. The equity proportion has increased, while unsecured loans such as mezzanine loans and second lien loans have decreased. Nordic PE companies have also stopped using syndicated loans, as it has been too risky to renegotiate debt re-payments with several banks. The study concludes that Nordic PE companies will in the nearest future change their geo-graphical focus more too emerging markets, while turn-a-rounds strategies will be used more frequently in the Nordic market.

This paper puts forward the hypothesis that the characteristics of followers of the pecking order theory of capital structure are explicitly distinct from those of non-followers. The factors determining financing behavior are far beyond the conventional perception of asymmetric information. Sampling from the IT industry in Taiwan, we observe that pecking order followers are associated with higher profitability, adequate cash, and other broadly recognized variables.

<p>The private equity (PE) industry has been growing over the recent years and a large amount of capital is invested in Nordic private equity funds. Buyouts which are focusing on a leverage effect, known as the leverage buyout (LBO), have transformed public companies into private equity owned portfolio companies. The purpose of this report is to describe and analyze the current state of the leverage buyout transaction in the Nordic market, with focus on the factors which are affecting the value creation process.</p><p>Through an abductive approach, data has been collected from interviews with representatives from PE companies and banks with experience of LBO transactions in both the Eu-ropean and the Nordic market. The objective was to examine the factors which are affect-ing the value creation process and to examine why LBO transactions in the Nordic PE market has generated higher EBITDA multiples than in the European market.</p><p>The study shows that PE companies operating in the Nordic market tends to appreciate operational and organizational value rather than multiple values. Nordic PE companies have in general exercised longer investments in the portfolio companies compared to European PE companies. The long term investments implementation has enabled the Nordic PE companies to accomplish entrepreneurial actions in a further extent. Nordic PE companies have also been successful in their streamlining process of the organ-ization structure, which partly explains the greater EBITDA multiples generated in the Nordic market. Another significant factor is the favorable tax regulation in Sweden which has been beneficial for the whole Nordic PE market. The current financial condition has affected both the activity and the transaction structure of LBO’s in the Nordic market. The equity proportion has increased, while unsecured loans such as mezzanine loans and second lien loans have decreased. Nordic PE companies have also stopped using syndicated loans, as it has been too risky to renegotiate debt re-payments with several banks. The study concludes that Nordic PE companies will in the nearest future change their geo-graphical focus more too emerging markets, while turn-a-rounds strategies will be used more frequently in the Nordic market.</p>

It may be argued that ours is far away from a sustainable society. For all the technological wonders that we have been able to produce, some basic problems such as lack of universal access to the means to satisfy one's basic needs, human rights violations, systematic degradation of the environment, among others are still present. Not for a lack of effort, but scientific progress, political effort and economic growth appear to have real limitations in their capability to help us solve some of these problems that have endured through time. Donella Meadows, an expert in systems analysis, has developed a comprehensive list of points to intervene in a system in order to effect change. Using that framework as a basis, the present study aims to try to identify potential reasons for why most of the efforts conducted so far to solve some of the previously mentioned fundamental problems appear not to be so effective. Many of the fundamental assumptions of the mainstream economic school that heavily influence policy making and individual behavior to a large extent, have been identified as potentially important leverage points being pushed in the wrong direction! Economic powers and vested interests allow for the erosion of the self-controlling elements of the global political-economic system such as democratic institutions, what Meadows classifies as weakening of negative feedback loops. The mainstream economic models promoting "success to the successful" loops such as accumulation of resources in the hands of a few, all the while concentrating power can be pointed out as an example of a positive loop getting dangerously out of control. Uncontrolled positive loops inevitably lead to system collapse. Concentration of power is specially dangerous as it can bestow upon an elite the power to set the rules of the system, one of the most effective leverage points according to Meadows. Additionally, by curtailing biological, ideological and cultural diversity we are compromising one of the fundamental conditions for our systems to endure threatening changes, the ability to self-organize, or evolve. The most powerful leverage point is the paradigm out of which the whole system is constructed. The current mainstream economic thinking is fundamentally based on a single paradigmatic assumption of scarcity by mean of the supposed impossibility of satisfying human material wants, as 'new wants are always emerging'. In this mindset, it seems to make sense for the economic system to promote limitless growth and accumulation under the assumption of unlimited material wants. In the possibility to transcend such a paradigm lies an important potential for leverage in the efforts to solve the fundamental problems that still hold our society from attaining sustainability.

This dissertation proposes that in the case of multiple sponsorships (i.e., brands sponsoring concomitantly the same event), the group constituted by the sponsoring brands and the sponsored event will be perceived as an entity; a phenomenon that Campbell (1958) called entitativity. The extent to which a group of brands and a sponsored event is seen as being entitative will result in stereotypic processing of the group members (Brewer and Harasty 1996). Information about an entitative group is abstracted and used to form judgments about every group member (McConnell, Sherman, and Hamilton 1997). Characteristics tied to one brand or to the event will become associated to the other brands due to category-based information processing (Fiske and Neuberg 1990). As a result, images associated with a brand or an event that belongs to an entitative group will be transferred to other brands of that group due to stereotyping.Image transfer effects were investigated through an experiment. Image transfer in sponsorship occurs primarily at an implicit level because sponsorship messages are subtle (Pham and Vanhuele 1997). As a consequence, the savings in relearning paradigm (Ebbinghaus 1885/1964) was the methodology used. It allows investigating implicit memory by comparing the recall of paired-associations between brands and image-traits across a multiple sponsorship and a no sponsorship condition. The findings confirmed that the event and the concomitant sponsoring brands were perceived as an entitative group, which resulted in an implicit transfer of image among the brands (Brand Image Transfer, BIT) as well as from the event to the brands (Event Image Transfer, EIT).

The main objectives of this master thesis are to explore the effectiveness of nonlinear mixed effects model for longitudinal data. Mixed effect models allow to investigate the nature of relationship between the time-varying covariates and the response while also capturing the variations of subjects. I investigate the robustness of the longitudinal models by building up the complexity of the models starting from multiple linear models and ending up with additive nonlinear mixed models. I use a dataset where firms’ leverage are explained by four explanatory variables in addition to a grouping factor that is the firm factor. The models are compared using comparison statistics such as AIC, BIC and by a visual inspection of residuals. Likelihood ratio test has been used in some nested models only. The models are estimated by maximum likelihood and restricted maximum likelihood estimation. The most efficient model is the nonlinear mixed effects model which has lowest AIC and BIC. The multiple linear regression model failed to explain the relation and produced unrealistic statistics

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Zugl.: Berlin, Univ., Diss., 2003.

Empirical studies have found that managers choose debt rather than equity to avoid EPS dilution and buy back outstanding shares to boost EPS, I thus explore the resulting effect of EPS on leverage. A firm’s leverage is negatively influenced by the level of its EPS. I also find that fluctuations in EPS have large effects on leverage and these effects persist for at least a decade. Besides, the negative impact of EPS on leverage becomes much stronger after the passage of SOX, in which period managers engage in more actions of debt-equity choices or stock repurchases with the sole purpose of manipulating EPS. Furthermore, managers’ equity incentives and corporate governance are two economic mechanisms through which EPS negatively influences leverage.