This study analyzes the market share of the top 10 home builders in nine Metropolitan Statistical Areas, along with fourteen other independent variables, to find a statistical relationship with median home sales price. Through a stepwise regression of the independent variables it is determined that there is no correlation between median home sale price and market share of the top 10 home builders. In the stepwise regression two variables are found to be correlated to median homes sales price: Owner Occupancy Percentage and Residential Construction Wages, a data point compiled for this study. A linear regression is run between market share of the top 10 and median home sale price and no correlation is found. / Master of Science

Forest management practices which reduce southern pine beetle (SPB) risk benefit not only the landowners who perform them, but all those who draw benefits from southern pine forests in Virginia, especially other forest owners within the same region. One such management practice is pre-commercial thinning (PCT), which is particularly unattractive to non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners because of the substantial costs and delayed financial returns involved. Since the benefits to society generated by PCT are not fully realized by the individuals who might implement it, there may be a market externality in which PCT is underprovided across the landscape. The Pine Bark Beetle Prevention Program (PBBPP) has the potential to correct this externality by reimbursing a portion of the costs of PCT for landowners who qualify. However, cost share incentives have been criticized for being ineffectual on the basis that landowners substitute publicly funded reimbursement for private investment, without altering their management practices. To investigate the effect of the PBBPP cost share for PCT, a survey was sent to 1,200 NIPF landowners in seven counties across the Piedmont and Coastal Plain physiographic regions of Virginia, where southern pine is prevalent and SPB hazard is a relevant concern. To measure willingness to participate in the program, a referendum style question was used in which the offered cost share ranged from 20% to 90%. Results of discrete choice models estimated from survey data indicate that cost sharing has a significant, positive effect on willingness to participate overall, though increasing reimbursement above 60% is unlikely to affect participation. Some landowners are not responsive or are less responsive to cost sharing due to personal and property characteristics. / Master of Science

This study investigates the relationship between corporate financial performance and carbon emission disclosure in listed companies in Sri Lanka, with a focus on contributing to the understanding of sustainability reporting practices. The purpose of the research is to explore how financial indicators namely Earnings per Share, Return on Assets, and Total Assets are associated with companies' decisions to disclose their carbon footprint, highlighting the interconnectedness between financial success and environmental responsibility. By employing quantitative research design and statistical analyses, the study aims to provide theoretical insights and practical implications for corporate reporting practices and corporate decision making.  The research philosophy of this study aligns with the positivist paradigm to ensure the attainment of unbiased and impartial findings. Employing an explanatory research design, the study utilizes data sourced from secondary sources pertaining to companies listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used for analysis, with 588 observations included in the study sample. Ethical considerations play a significant role in guiding the research process, ensuring the confidentiality and appropriate handling of sensitive corporate financial data.  Based on the findings of the correlation analysis of this study there is a positive relationship between financial performance indicators and carbon emission disclosure in Sri Lankan listed companies. Specifically, there is a significant relationship between Earnings per Share (EPS) and carbon emission disclosure, indicating that companies with higher EPS are more likely to disclose their carbon-related activities as a strategic move to enhance their financial image. However, the analysis shows no significant relationship between Return on Assets (ROA) and carbon emission disclosure, suggesting that asset utilization efficiency may not directly influence environmental reporting practices. Additionally, the study finds a significant relationship of Total Assets on carbon emission disclosure, indicating that the size of a company, as indicated by its Total Assets, plays a substantial role in determining the disclosure of carbon emission.  Finally, this research contributes to a deeper awareness of the relationship between financial performance indicators and carbon emission disclosure in the context of Sri Lankan listed companies. The study underscores the importance of integrating environmental considerations into corporate strategies and reporting frameworks, advocating for a comprehensive approach to decision-making that prioritizes long-term environmental sustainability alongside financial success. The findings enhance understanding of the interplay between financial performance and sustainability reporting, paving the way for further analyses in the growing field of corporate sustainability.

Rights issues serve as a critical tool in the field of corporate finance, enabling companies toraise new capital while offering existing shareholders the opportunity to maintain theirproportional ownership stakes without dilution. This study aims to study the impact of therights issue discount on the share price performance within the Nordic markets, focusing onshort- and medium-term effects post-rights issuance. Furthermore, the study also seeks toprovide a nuanced understanding of how stock returns of firms with different characteristicsare impacted by rights issue discounts. The empirical framework employs an event studymethodology using different regression model specifications, to analyze a sample of 90Nordic companies listed on the Nasdaq OMX exchange over the period from 2014 to 2023.When controlling for firm-specific characteristics, the findings suggest that greater discountshave a slight adverse effect on shareholders in the short term following a rights issueannouncement. The effect on returns is estimated to be approximately -0.5 percentage pointfor each 1 percentage point increase in discounts over a 6 month period; however, no sucheffect is observed over longer time periods. This violates concepts of efficient markets whichpredict no such sustained trends. It suggests that investors perceive deeper discounts asindicative of overvaluation or underlying issues with the company, in turn underminingconfidence in the post-announcement period. However, additional robustness tests impliedthat the correlation between rights issue discounts and negative returns is caused by outliersin the data. The nuanced findings are of practical relevance for boards of directors, corporatefinance advisors as well as shareholders.

This thesis investigates the relationship between share repurchase decisions and severalfinancial variables the year before. We link financial theories such as signaling,substitution, leverage, excess capital, corporate governance, employee stock option, andlegitimacy theory to this relationship and create a hypothesis to test in a quantitative study.This study uses publicly listed firms headquartered in Nordic countries and uses mainlyfinancial data collected between 2015-2019. The study intends to define what factors mayaffect a share repurchase decision and by which degree. This study is also among the firstto test Refinitiv ESG pillar scores toward this relationship. The purpose of this is tounderstand the process better and could potentially allow management to understand betterwhen a share repurchase program can be initiated. It can also better inform stakeholders infirms' decisions on the market in regards to share repurchases. This deductive andquantitative research is based on secondary data gathered from the Eikon financial databaseto create an observational study.We find that share repurchasing firms have more cash flows, lower leverage ratio, morestock options programs, more board members, and fewer independent board members. Wefind that firms with excess cash flows are more likely to undertake a share repurchase eventfrom the regression analysis consistent with the excess cash flow theory. We find arelationship between having a high number of board members, where few are independent,increases the likelihood of a share repurchase event in the following year, which wasagainst our initial corporate governance hypothesis. We found that a higher governancepillar score increases the likelihood of a share repurchases event that shows value tolegitimacy theory but cannot conclusively answer that firms use sustainability disclosure asa tool to legitimize themselves. This result more likely links to corporate governancetheory. We did not find a relation for the undervaluation, substitution, leverage, employeestock options theory. We conclude that firms with more cash flows, lower leverage ratio,more stock options programs, more board members, and fewer independent board membersuse share repurchases more than their counterparts. We note that ESG scores are relativelynew and have seen more widespread use in the latest years.We look forward to reading more research in this field as more data is collected.

People make a company. Their expertise and talents, efficiency and job performance determine the company‘s profitability and growth. The long-term retention of employees is of the utmost importance, as these employees have a wealth of knowledge about the company, its industry and the products or services being sold. Businesses have created plans to retain employees for a maximum period of time. These ideas include cash bonuses, phantom share schemes, and providing the employee with shares in the business. This study will look at such ideas in general, and specifically investigate the different ways of providing employees with shares in the business. There are different ways of providing the employee with shares in a business. This can include loans (including interest-free loans) to the employee from the employer, loans to the employee from a financial institution, employee share ownership plans, company share option plans and providing the employee with shares in the business through an employee share trust. Each of these methods attracts certain taxes such as income tax, capital gains tax and secondary tax on companies or dividend tax. The aim of this study is to use a case study approach, critically analysing an anonymous company providing its employees with shares in the company through an employee share trust, and will specifically investigate the different tax consequences of each transaction taking place in the trust AFRIKAANS : Werknemers is 'n maatskappy se belangrikste bate. 'n Maatskappy se winsgewendheid en groei word deur sy werknemers se kennis, doeltreffendheid en werksprestasie bepaal. Dit is vir 'n maatskappy van kritieke belang om sy werknemers vir so lank as moontlik te behou, aangesien hierdie werknemers oor kosbare kennis besit rakende die maatskappy, die bedryf waarin die maatskappy besigheid doen en die produkte of dienste wat die maatskappy bemark. Talle maatskappy het skemas bewerkstellig om hulle werknemers vir so lank as moontlik te behou. Dit behels onder andere kontantbonusse, fiktiewe aandeleskemas en die verkryging van aandele in die maatskappy deur die werknemer. Hierdie studie ondersoek sodanige skemas in die algemeen, en fokus spesifiek op werknemers wat aandele in 'n maatskappy bekom. Werknemers kan aandele in die maatskappy op verskillende wyses bekom. Hierdie wyses sluit in lenings (insluitend rentevrye lenings) van die maatskappy aan die werknemer, lenings aan die werknemer van 'n finansiële instelling, aandeleskemas, opsies om aandele in 'n maatskappy te koop, en die verskaffing van aandele aan die werknemer deur 'n werknemer-aandeletrust. Elkeen van hierdie opsies het spesifieke belastinggevolge, insluitend inkomstebelasting, kapitaalwinsbelasting, en sekondêre belasting op maatskappye of dividendbelasting. Die doel van hierdie studie is om 'n spesifieke gevallestudie van 'n annonieme maatskappye te ontleed, waar die maatskappy aandele aan sy werknemers deur 'n werknemer-aandeletrust verskaf het, en sal in detail na die belastinggevolge van elke aksie in die trust te kyk. Copyright 2011, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Fouche, C 2011, Taxation consequences of providing shares to employees through a trust, MCom dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-03262012-153458 / > F12/4/187/gm / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Taxation / unrestricted

This thesis investigates the factors that are associated with annual changes in the share price of Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listed companies. In this study, an increase in value of a share is when the share price of a company goes up by the end of the financial year as compared to the previous year. Secondary data that was sourced from McGregor BFA website was used. The data was from 2004 up to 2011. Deciding which share to buy is the biggest challenge faced by both investment companies and individuals when investing on the stock exchange. This thesis uses binary logistic regression to identify the variables that are associated with share price increase. The dependent variable was annual change in share price (ACSP) and the independent variables were assets per capital employed ratio, debt per assets ratio, debt per equity ratio, dividend yield, earnings per share, earnings yield, operating profit margin, price earnings ratio, return on assets, return on equity and return on capital employed. Different variable selection methods were used and it was established that the backward elimination method produced the best model. It was established that the probability of success of a share is higher if the shareholders are anticipating a higher return on capital employed, and high earnings/ share. It was however, noted that the share price is negatively impacted by dividend yield and earnings yield. Since the odds of an increase in share price is higher if there is a higher return on capital employed and high earning per share, investors and investment companies are encouraged to choose companies with high earnings per share and the best returns on capital employed. The final model had a classification rate of 68.3% and the validation sample produced a classification rate of 65.2% / Mathematical Sciences / M.Sc. (Statistics)

Thesis (M.Com. (Accounting))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

It is acknowledged that the primary objective of any company should be the creation of shareholder-value. However, it is also recognised that there are other stakeholders, with their own financial and/or non-financial objectives, which could impact on a company's overall financial performance. Management should therefore identify stakeholder-groups which could impact on the company and formulate a model in addressing their objectives. This study integrates elements from the theory of shareholder-value, the agency-theory, the theory of property rights and different stakeholder orientation-models to develop the approach of responsible stakeholder-management in the creation of shareholder-value. Stakeholders can be grouped into economic, social and environmental components. The concept of sustainable development has exploded in recent years. Three main elements of sustainable development were identified, namely economic, social and environmental development, referred to as "Triple Bottom Line (TBL)". Several organisations have started focussing on the concept of sustainability by guiding the development of sustainability policies. However, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has become the de facto global standard for reporting on sustainable development. The concept of TBL, and how the three elements of sustainability could contribute to the maximisation of shareholder-value, is discussed. The results of the empirical study, where the financial performance and shareholder-growth of companies listed on the JSE and which adopted and reported on the GRI-guidelines, were compared to a group of companies in the same index grouping of the JSE that had not formally adopted and reported on the guidelines, identified a clear trend that those reporting on their sustainability policies had had a much better growth in five of the six financial measures used than the comparative group. / Thesis (M.Com. (Accounting))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

It is acknowledged that the primary objective of any company should be the creation of shareholder-value. However, it is also recognised that there are other stakeholders, with their own financial and/or non-financial objectives, which could impact on a company's overall financial performance. Management should therefore identify stakeholder-groups which could impact on the company and formulate a model in addressing their objectives. This study integrates elements from the theory of shareholder-value, the agency-theory, the theory of property rights and different stakeholder orientation-models to develop the approach of responsible stakeholder-management in the creation of shareholder-value. Stakeholders can be grouped into economic, social and environmental components. The concept of sustainable development has exploded in recent years. Three main elements of sustainable development were identified, namely economic, social and environmental development, referred to as "Triple Bottom Line (TBL)". Several organisations have started focussing on the concept of sustainability by guiding the development of sustainability policies. However, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has become the de facto global standard for reporting on sustainable development. The concept of TBL, and how the three elements of sustainability could contribute to the maximisation of shareholder-value, is discussed. The results of the empirical study, where the financial performance and shareholder-growth of companies listed on the JSE and which adopted and reported on the GRI-guidelines, were compared to a group of companies in the same index grouping of the JSE that had not formally adopted and reported on the guidelines, identified a clear trend that those reporting on their sustainability policies had had a much better growth in five of the six financial measures used than the comparative group. / Thesis (M.Com. (Accounting))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.