Existing research demonstrates that corporate financing decisions influence the cash-flow rights and control rights of the securities issued by companies differently and that the same corporate capital structures and/or ownership patterns have diverse effects and aims across countries, especially when emerging countries are analysed. The 1research purpose of this investigation is to understand how corporate financing decisions are affected by ownership structure in emerging countries. For this purpose, two game-theoretic models are developed and an empirical test is carried out. The first theoretical model analyses a number of key factors inducing a separation of ownership and control in emerging countries. This model argues that large private benefits of control, extreme risk, low investor protection, inefficient capital markets, and governments sympathetic to incumbent management at the expense of outside investors are factors contributing to create a separation of ownership and control in emerging markets. The second model examines the positive side of network creation through the analysis of the interaction of empathy and economic gains. This model identifies important factors promoting the formation of business groups in emerging countries. The empirical study is a two-fold analysis. Firstly, it tests the effects of well-known determinants of capital structure on debt; secondly, the effects of ownership and control in the financial policies of emerging countries are analysed. To do so, corporate financial data and firm-level data of Mexican publicly traded companies for was gathered. As expected, asset tangibility, company size, profitability and market to book ratio proved to be important firm-specific capital structure determinants, similar to the case of developed countries. Business risk and effective tax rate are key firm-specific capital structure determinants, as emerging markets research has identified. The two factors proposed by this researcher, viz. consolidation and liquidity are significant in the determination of capital structure of the Mexican publicly traded companies. Further, almost two thirds of Mexican publicly traded companies are family controlled. When families are large shareholders, they favour debt financing; whereas when families are the majority controlling shareholder they prefer issue shares, the latter supports the risk management argument proposed by Hagelin et al. (2006) and Céspedes et al. (2010).

Assess the capital structure of the company, including influencing factors. Further evaluate various concepts cost of capital, cost of analyzing individual components of equity in a particular company and assess their impact on business performance.

The main aim of this thesis is to describe the optimalization and quantification of a capital structure in a company, both theoretically and practically. The first part comprises general understanding of a quite broad theoretical base. Firstly, the capital structure of a company and its individual parts are defined. Further, there is the analysis of the method of calculation of individual types of costs of capital. Major attention is paid to the description and evaluation of the various theories of the optimalization of capital structure. In the end of the theoretical part, the most important determinants of the capital structure are mentioned. The practical part of the thesis emphasis on the detailed analysis of an optimal capital structure of a real firm - Škoda Auto a.s. whereas the major attention is paid to balancing of the proportion of the company's own equity and foreign capital. The final part of the thesis includes calculation of the company's actual costs of capital and there are recommendations of how it could optimize its capital structure.

This thesis presents an empirical investigation into the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT). At the onset of the thesis it is recognised that tests of the APT are conditional on a number of preconditions and assumptions. The first line of investigation examines the effect of the assumed nature of the form of the return generating process of stocks. It is found that stocks follow an approximate factor structure and tests of the APT are sensitive to the specified form of the return generating process. We provide an efficient estimation methodology for the case when stocks follow an approximate factor structure. The second issue we raise is that of the appropriate factors, the role of the market portfolio and the performance of the APT against the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). The conclusions that we draw are that the APT is robust to a number of specified alternatives and furthermore, the APT outperforms the CAPM in comparative tests. In addition, within the APT specification there is a role for the market portfolio. Through a comparison of the results in chapters 2 and 3 it is evident that the APT is not robust to the specification of unexpected components. We evaluate the validity of extant techniques in this respect and find that they are unlikely to be representative of agents actual unexpected components. Consequently we put forth an alternative methodology based upon estimating expectations from a learning scheme. This technique is valid in respect to our prior assumptions. Having addressed these preconditions and assumptions that arise in tests of the APT a thorough investigation into the empirical content of the APT is then undertaken. Concentrating on the issues that the return generating process must be unique and that the estimated risk premia should be stable overtime the results indicate that the APT does have empirical content. Finally, armed with the empirically valid APT we proceed to analyse the issue of seasonalities in stock returns. The results confirm previous findings that there are seasonal patterns in the UK stock market, however, unlike previous findings we show that these seasonal patterns are part of the risk return structure and can be explained by the yearly business cycle. Furthermore, the APT retains empirical content when these seasonal patterns are removed from the data. The overall finding of this thesis is that the APT does have empirical content and provides a good description of the return generating process of UK stocks.

This thesis comprehensively examines financial structure choices of firms in three emerging economies of the East African region. It highlights the lack of research in this area and empirically examines three panel data models of financial structure (ownership, firm-specific factorsâ and firm performance models, whilst incorporating the influence of macroeconomic factors) using panel data estimation techniques, including the method of moments framework. It estimates these models using panel data from 47 listed firms; and then data from 20 private firms. The original and significant contributions to knowledge of my thesis are as follows: it provides novel insights into the relation between ownership structure and firm financial structure; it provides new understanding of the relation between firm-specific factors and financial structure of quoted and private firms in emerging economies (an area where research has been lacking); it provides new understanding and additional evidence with respect to the effect of ownership structure on the performance of firms in the East African region; it incorporates the influence of macroeconomic and institutional factors on financial structure choices; and it proposes frameworks for reviewing knowledge of financial structure choices, which can be used for further scholarly work on financial structure of firms in emerging economies. The findings of this research have implications for a possibility of a new theoretical framework for researching financial structure choice of firms in emerging economies; for policy makers to design deliberate policies that enhance access to finance for firms operating in an emerging economy; and for policy makers to regulate institutions (banking sector and capital market) as they develop to ensure equitable access (particularly for the private firms) to finance by all firms operating within the economy. Taken together, the results have implication for future scholarship in that they provide clearer and useful insights on ownership structure, financial structure choices and performance of both quoted and private firms in emerging economies; and the methods used are highly replicable and can be replicated in future studies of financial structure choices of firms in emerging economies. It has also invoked further questions that require answers.

No description available.

This thesis asses the financial health of company WAX, s.r.o., in the years 2004 to 2006 at the basis of selected methods of the financial analysis. It contains proposals of possible solutions of identified problems which should result in the improvement of financial situation of the firm in future years.

I dagsläget finns det ett stort gap mellan det bokförda värde till vilket organisationer värderar sina tillgångar och det marknadsvärde till vilket organisationerna är värderade. Vad detta osynliga värde består av kan delvis beröra något som teoretiker och praktiker kommit att kalla intellektuellt kapital (IC). IC består av bland annat anställda, kompetens, strukturer, system, kundbaser och relationer. I dagens kunskapsföretag kan detta omfatta stora delar av företagens tillgångar. Anledningen till att detta gap uppstår beror till stor del på en problematik att värdera dessa tillgångar inom IC med det nuvarande ramverket för redovisning. Då det inte existerar några lagar gällande hur IC ska redovisas har företagen hamnat i en situation där detta sker genom frivillig redovisning. Detta tar sig i uttryck på olika sätt, vilket skapar spretiga presentationer inom ett redovisningsfält som annars styrs av en röd tråd och kontinuitet. Ett kommunikationsmedel som kommit att användas för att presentera information om IC är årsredovisningen.Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur, i termer av omfattning, företag inom rekryterings- och bemanningsbranschen presenterar information om IC i sina årsredovisningar. För att studera IC används begreppen humankapital, strukturkapital och relationskapital vilka utgör en väl vedertagen uppdelning. Dessa bryts ned i ett antal indikatorer vilka undersöks. Metoden som används för att besvara studiens frågeställningar är en kvantitativ innehållsanalys. Detta med bakgrund av att det är ett effektivt medel för att studera mönster i kommunikation och göra bedömningar av förmedlad information.Resultatet från studien talar för att relationskapitalet är det som generellt rapporteras mest, följt av humankapital och slutligen strukturkapital. Det framgår att samtliga företag redovisar information om IC i sina årsredovisningar, och samlat utgör medelvärdet och medianen för redovisningen över hundra rapporterade indikatorer per företag. Det förekommer vissa skillnader mellan vilka faktorer som mest frekvent redovisas hos företagen, där exempelvis två av företagen redovisade humankapital mer och några andra företag redovisade betydligt mycket mer IC generellt. Resultaten diskuteras utifrån ett antal redovisningsteoretiska utgångspunkter och det framgår att det skulle kunna röra sig om geografiska och nationella skillnader. Det som slutligen kan fastslås är att företagen tycks lägga stort fokus på att redovisa information om kunder, anställda och olika partners. Det var vanligt förekommande att olika nöjdhetsindex presenterades för att visa hur bra dessa behandlas. Det som var utmärkande inom redovisningen av strukturkapitalet var att företagen lade mest vikt på att redovisa information om kultur inom organisationerna. / There is a significant gap between the book value in which companies’ valuate their assets and the market value. What this invisible value consists of is something that theorists and practitioners are calling intellectual capital (IC). IC contains information about employees, competence, structures, systems, customer base and relations, to mention a few. In today’s knowledge-based companies, the IC is often a vast part of a company’s assets. The reason this gap exists is because of shortcomings in today’s restrictions and laws within accounting. Because there are no laws regarding how the IC should be reported, companies have found themselves in a position where this occurs through voluntarily disclosure. This is expressed in different ways, which creates straggling presentations of IC within an otherwise structured accounting field. A mean for communication of companies’ IC is through the annual report.The purpose of this study is to examine, in terms of the extent, how companies within the recruitment and staffing industry presents information about IC in their annual reports and to compare the companies to each other. To study IC, the terms human capital, structure capital and relational capital is used. These are broken down into several indicators that are examined. A quantitative content analysis is used as a research method to answer the research question. This is used because of its efficiency in studying patterns in communication and later drawing conclusions about a given set of information.The result of the study proves that the relational capital is what is most frequently reported, followed by human capital and lastly structure capital. It appears that all companies disclose information about IC in their annual reports, and that together the mean and median of indicators reported exceeds one hundred. However, there are a few differences among the organizations regarding the most frequently reported factors. For instance, two of the companies reported most of human capital, while other reported more IC in general. The results are discussed from an accounting theoretical approach, and factors including geographical and national differences seem to influence the IC reporting. What is finally concluded is that companies tend to put focus on reporting information about customers, employees, and partners. It was common that companies disclosed information about indexes where employee, customer and partner satisfaction was highlighted. What was remarkable within the disclosure regarding structure capital was that the companies focused mostly on information about the culture within the organizations.

This paper addresses the problem of a failing net debt approach; deposited funds rarely compensate the cost of debt. Venturing into operational credit facilities, the study evaluates the efficiency and feasibility of transitioning into fully cash-free liquidity management. The study takes a holistic approach and evaluates the research questions from the perspective of management through case studies on four smaller Swedish industrial firms. The study finds that there is substantial potential to free up capital; return on equity could have been boosted by an annual 5-10 percent including substantial one-off distributions. The study also concludes that Agency reasons are strong reasons for why firms are carrying material cash reserves. Through qualitative interviews, the study identifies several additional, but not less important, obstacles in the way of a full out cash-free transition. Most significantly, the financial system is not offering fully committed long term operational credit facilities and operating across different jurisdictions complicates the consolidation of liquidity. The study concludes that the matter would not have vast negative implications on real business activities, although further research would be required in regard to an extended debt overhang problem. / Uppsatsen kretsar kring den fallerande logiken med begreppet nettoskuld; tillgodohavanden på bank genererar sällan upp för kostnaden relaterad till motsvarande skuld. Med utgångspunkt i operationella kreditstrukturer utvärderas möjliga effektivitetsvinster och genomförbarheten av en fullständig övergång till kassa-fri likviditetshantering. Studien har ett holistiskt angreppssätt och utvärderar frågeställningarna från ett management-perspektiv genom fallstudier på fyra mindre svenska industriella bolag. Studien finner betydande möjligheter att frigöra kapital; årliga avkastningen på eget kapital hade kunnat öka med 5–10 procent och betydande engångsutdelningar hade varit möjliga. Studien finner vidare att agentteorin är en stark anledning till att bolag bär betydande kassapositioner. Genom kvalitativa intervjuer identifierar studien ytterligare, men ej desto mindre betydande, hinder för en kassa-fri övergång. Mest betydelsefullt, är att nuvarande finansiella system inte erbjuder för syftet fullgoda kreditstrukturer, samt det faktum att företag med verksamhet över olika jurisdiktioner upplever juridiska svårigheter med att konsolidera likviditet. Studien drar slutsatsen att en övergång inte skulle medföra betydande negativa konsekvenser för den operativa affärsverksamheten, men identifierar samtidigt att ytterligare studier skulle vara nödvändiga framförallt kring hur finansiella incitament kopplade till agent-teorins ’debt overhang’ skulle förändras vill en övergång till en fullt garanterad operationell kreditstruktur.