For the past half a century, there has been progressive development in corporate finance theories, and among these, corporate financial decisions have been attracting the attention of outsiders. As the outsiders¡¦ learning process of the firm¡¦s private information determines the firm¡¦s value, managers who are concerned with outsiders¡¦ perceptions of their firms try to enhance their firms¡¦ short-term reputation through their financial decisions. However, up to this date, few reputation models have been applied to predict these financial decisions. Three corporate finance issues are involved to identify the reputation effects on corporate finance: (1) convertible bond call policies, (2) IPO decisions and activities, and (3) corporate financing policies. As for the first issue, this study constructs a two-period reputation model of a convertible bond call policy. This model concludes that in equilibrium, a firm with bad management quality and a bad reputation chooses to call, while a firm with good management quality or of a good reputation builds up it reputation by not calling the convertible bonds. This is consistent with the signaling theory proposed by Harris and Raviv (1985). However, the reputation model here identifies the call policy as a reputation-building mechanism rather than being only a signaling role, and suggests that the reputation rents resolve the discrepancies of the stock¡¦s post-call price performance. As for the IPO decisions and activities, this study performs another reputation model to analyze a firm¡¦s reputation effects on IPO activities, especially on the decision to go public. The results yield that a firm¡¦s reputation does affect its decision to go public. By listing equities publicly, firms with good management quality and a solid past would anticipate enhancing their reputations, and those with a poor past would anticipate building up good names. Furthermore, good reputation firms with bad management quality would anticipate maintaining their reputations by going public. On the other hand, it is found that good firms over-invest in building up their reputations and bad firms take advantage of their reputations to go public. Both result in firms¡¦ over-going public and IPO mispricing. This constitutes an alternative interpretation on IPOs¡¦ long-run underperformance and the sharp decline of the survival rate. As for the corporate financing policies, the other reputation model is constructed by taking both determinants, the costs of financial distress as well as the firm¡¦s reputation into consideration. The results show that good management quality firms with good reputations enjoy their financial flexibility between debt and equity. Bad management quality firms take advantage of their good names to issue equities, which leads to over investment. Good management firms lose their financial accesses due to bad reputations, which lead to under investment. Reputations would screen the bad management quality firms with bad reputations off the market. This dissertation concludes that reputations indeed affect the three selected corporate financial decisions and suggests further plow on more corporate finance issues.

Background: A public offering or "Initial Public Offering" means that a company is transferred from being unlisted to trading on a stock exchange. When a company is listed, the company needs to establish a prospectus. This document is meant to give potential investors information about the operations in the company with both historical financial data and more descriptive information. The prospectus should therefore contain all necessary information needed to make a well-founded assessment about the IPO. Historically IPOs have tended to overperform in the short term and have an underperformance in the long run compared with already listed companies. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to identify the general return patterns for IPOs in Sweden in both short-term and in the long run. The study also aims to investigate whether the company's prospectus published in connection with the IPO can explain these yield patterns. Methodology: The general return patterns have been calculated using the Buy and Hold Abnormal Return (BHAR) and Cumulative Abnormal Return (CAR) methods. The raw returns shown by the IPOs have been adjusted to the chosen reference index to determine whether an over- or underperformance has taken place. In addition, several multiple regressions have been conducted to determine whether selected variables can explain the abnormal return shown by IPOs. Conclusion: The study results shows that the initial return on the first day of the 2007-2014 period was an average of 2.82% for the study's selection of 45 public offerings from Stockholmsbörsen and First North. The IPOs showed a negative trend with an underperformance in the first three months. The result for the short term is thus not consistent with previous research in IPOs. In the long run, however, the study's selection shows an underperformance of -12.85% measured with BHAR and -24.13% with CAR. This result is consistent with previous studies in other markets. Furthermore, only one of the selected variables, the initial return, could to some extent (16.8%) explain the abnormal return for the first month. The other variables were not statistically significant in any of the studied periods. / Bakgrund: En börsintroduktion eller "Initial Public Offering" innebär att ett företag övergår från att vara onoterad till att handlas på en aktiebörs. I samband med att ett företag börsnoteras behöver företaget upprätta ett prospekt. Detta dokument ska ge potentiella investerare information om verksamheten av både beskrivande kvalitet och historiska finansiella data som kan kvantifieras av investeraren. Ett prospekt bör således innehålla all nödvändig information för att göra en välgrundad bedömning. Vidare har börsintroduktioner historiskt visat att dessa tenderar att överprestera på kort sikt och underpresterar på lång sikt jämfört med redan börsnoterade företag. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att identifiera generella avkastningsmönster för börsintroduktioner på kort- och lång sikt i Sverige. Studien ämnar även att undersöka om företagets prospekt som publiceras i samband med börsintroduktionen kan förklara dessa avkastningsmönster. Metod: De generella avkastningsmönstrena har beräknats med hjälp av metoden Buy and Hold Abnormal Return (BHAR) och Cumulative Abnormal Return (CAR). Avkastningen som börsintroduktionerna uppvisar har justerats till valt referensindex för att avgöra huruvida en över- eller underprestation har skett. Vidare har flertal multipla regressioner genomförts för att fastställa om utvalda variabler kan förklara den abnormala avkastningen som börsintroduktioner uppvisar. Slutsats: Studiens resultat visar att den initiala avkastningen första dagen under perioden 2007–2014 var i genomsnitt 2,82% för studiens urval på 45 stycken börsintroduktioner på Stockholmsbörsen och First North. Börsintroduktionerna visade på en negativ trend med en underprestation de första tre månaderna. Resultatet för kort sikt överensstämmer således inte med tidigare forskning inom börsintroduktioner. På lång sikt däremot uppvisar studiens urval en underavkastning på -12,85% mätt med BHAR och -24,13% med CAR. Detta resultat överensstämmer med tidigare studier på andra marknader. Vidare kunde endast en av de utvalda variablerna, den initiala avkastningen, till en viss grad (16,8%) förklara den abnormala avkastningen på en månad. De andra variablerna var inte statistiskt signifikanta i någon av undersökningsperioderna.