"Svěřenský fond" - institute of intergenerational wealth preservation and succession Abstract Thesis named "Svěřenský fond - institute of intergenerational wealth preservation and succession" is dedicated to describe institution of "svěřenský fond" from the perspective of a potential alternative or addition to a more traditional institutions of inheritance law. The aim of the thesis is to describe primarily its use to a purpose of family wealth preservation and succession. In order to fulfill this goal, the first part of the thesis analyses how fiducie/trust of Quebec made its way into Czech legislation. Main matter being the consequences adoption of a patrimony by appropriation caused. Second part follows historical roots of fiduciary institutes. It finds a persistent need for very similar fiduciary, trust-like institutes throughout history. The goal stays the same, a desire of families to preserve their wealth. Historical analysis, using an evolutionist paradigm, finds similarities between trust, modern fiduciary institutes and "svěřenský fond" which simply cannot be unseen. Based on this findings a hypothesis of a common ancestor is construed. Third part describes a newly acquired construction of trust-like institute, which was unseen in Czech law until 2014. It focuses on a result of transplantation of...

THE ABSTRACT Topic: Problems of activity of foreign foundations and endowment funds in Czech Republic. This thesis is primary aimed to clarify problems regarding to activity of foreign foundation and endowment funds in Czech Republic. The purpose of this work is to explain related problems and provide possible solutions for such issues. In the early chapters, the author familiarizes readers with history of foundations and endowment funds in Czech Republic and explains the terminology and meaning of foundations and endowment funds as a legal person. Secondly, the author analyses legal situation in Czech law and presents various options for activity of foreign foundations and endowment funds in Czech Republic. Furthermore, the author deals with the description of the solution consisting in the establishment of branch in Czech Republic. This part of the thesis is the largest content because the author provides possible solutions for various problems arising from establishing of branch. The thesis also describes foreign legislation relating to foundations and endowment funds. And finally, the author states possible changes in Czech law, which will lead to the better foundation's legislation in Czech Republic and attaches drafts of documents usable for the thesis topic.

Significant savings in CO2 emissions can be won from fabric upgrades, and improved forms of heating. An increase in the number of building retrofits and installations of energy efficient plant such as biomass boilers or CCHPs must be the aim if the UK is serious in meeting its commitment to CO2 reduction at both the domestic and EU level. A way of achieving this increase, which will need to be significant, would be to tap into the vast funds under management by institutional investors who are required to invest those funds to optimise its monetary return, taking into account the level of risk. The aim of the research is to identify the enabling conditions that would need to exist to attract institutional investment in energy efficiency at scale. The UK Green Investment Bank has invested £50m into three energy efficiency funds, requiring each fund manager to match the amount by attracting investment from institutional investors. It is these funds that have been analysed as a single Green Investment Bank case study. Embedded units of analysis are on two levels with the individual funds being the first, and the institutional investors investing in those funds as the second. A hybrid deductive and inductive qualitative approach to the research was taken employing thematic analysis. The findings of the research reported here indicate that the emerging key enabling conditions that would make energy efficiency an attractive proposition are firstly, the way energy efficiency investments are classified in terms of an investment asset class, secondly the contractual structure of the individual transactions made by the funds, and finally, the experience and familiarity of the fund manager.

Arrivée à ces noces d’étain, la fiducie continue de déranger autant qu’elle déroute. Alors que tout oppose la prétendue propriété fiduciaire de la propriété, la doctrine, presque à l’unisson, défend ce mariage contre-nature. Pour administrer le patrimoine créé pour l’occasion, le fiduciaire se verrait confier la toute puissance d’un propriétaire, qu’il faudrait immédiatement s’empresser de contenir pour que fiduciant et bénéficiaire ne se retrouvent pas démunis face au fiduciaire roi dans son royaume. Pourquoi persister en ce sens ? N’est-il pas possible de puiser dans nos catégories juridiques au lieu de les épuiser ? Assurément, la réponse est positive. En replaçant l’affectation voulue par les parties au contrat au cœur de l’opération et en acceptant de sortir des sentiers battus, il est possible de rendre au fiduciaire sa véritable place, celle d’un administrateur de patrimoine doté de pouvoirs propres. L’analyse alternative proposée permettra à la fois d’éclairer le régime applicable, de lever certaines zones d’ombre et d’accroître l’efficacité de l’opération, en offrant au fiduciant et au bénéficiaire les moyens de faire face à un fiduciaire peu scrupuleux. / Introduced in the french law since ten years yet, the french trust, as know as « fiducie », keeps destabilising. While everything seems oppose that so-called fiduciary property and the real property, the doctrine preaches for assimilation. To manage the fiduciary estate, the trustee is said to own the whole power as a proprietor, but wich has to be straight away limited to spare the settler and the sestui que trust findind themeselves helpless in front of a powerfully trustee. Why then to prevail in this way ? Isn’t it possible to deal with others mechanism of the legal arsenal instead of altering it ? Doubtlessly, a positive answer has to be given. To focus attention on the allocation (affectation) and to depart from the beaten tracks, allow to take back the trustee his rightful palce : he is an estate manager provided with inherent powers. The analyse suggested succeed in explaining the legal regime, clarifying doubts and increasing effectiveness thanks to means for settler and sestui que trust to deal with a careless trustee.

Until 1980 in Australia, occupational superannuation had played only a peripheral role in securing retirement savings for the workforce at large with less than 40% of all employees at this time receiving superannuation benefits. By the time the twenty-first century began, however, 91% of all Australian employees and 81% of all workers were covered by superannuation, and, by 2007, total superannuation assets had reached $1.2 trillion with superannuation fund balances the largest financial asset held by households. This substantial growth in superannuation coverage did not occur as a result of free market forces operating between producers and consumers in the superannuation industry. Rather, this increase was found to be directly related to the level of intervention in the industry by both the Labor and Coalition Governments throughout the last three decades. / The rationale provided by these Governments highlighted the public interest necessity of ensuring that there was an adequate coverage, level and rate of growth of retirement savings. Criticisms of this rationale have, however, continued to grow unabated. These concerns focus on the failure of the regulatory regime changes introduced to actually achieve their public-interest rationales in terms of improving Australia’s national savings rates or to produce effective governance mechanisms to protect the security of the worker-owned trillion-dollar asset pool now under investment. / The primary objective of this thesis was to investigate these opposing claims (within the framework of the public interest and private interest theories of regulation), via the combination of a detailed literature review and a statistical analysis which utilised factor analysis, and logistic and multiple regression modelling techniques. / This combined analysis suggested three primary conclusions: / (1) the origins of the regulatory regime change process needed to be considered as a political game with the simultaneously experienced detriments of key interest groups resulting in a groundswell of pro-regulatory reform activity which sought to obtain relief from “suffering”. The private interest prediction that governments/politicians in electoral democracies were concerned about finding a support coalition to promote their re-election chances was, therefore, confirmed; / (2) in comparison, there was less than convincing evidence to support the public interest claims of bothgovernments in relation to the origins of the regime change process; and / (3) as opposed to these origins-related findings, the regulatory impact story analysis of the review period confirmed that the primary “winner” of the regulatory regime changes was the fund manager group in general and the large, incumbent, life office entities in particular with statistically significant improvements in fund manager “detriments” (e.g. in terms of the total superannuation assets held within the statutory funds of life offices variable). While the government/politicians group was also a “winner” given the significant increases in the “bureaucratic empire building” variable, it was a significant “loser” in terms of the downturn in the public interest variables of household savings rates, net personal savings rates and voluntary superannuation contributions. The ACTU, the employers and workers in general were also all “losers” in that: union membership rates were characterised by downturns; employers do not appear to have been able to “offset” increased occupational superannuation benefits with reductions in wages and/or employment levels; and there was no significant improvement in either of the fund member indicators (i.e. in terms of the fund member welfare index or their real rate of returns). Thus, the private interest prediction that, in terms of regulatory impacts/outcomes, there would be significant wealth transfers away from fund members primarily to the fund managers was confirmed. / These findings raise implications for the ongoing development of regulation in this area which will need further consideration. For example, is it likely that future, private interest-based regulatory changes will be imposed on the occupational superannuation industry which will lead to further detriments to fund members and increasing wealth transfers to the fund managers? Alternatively, is it likely that, at some point, a regulatory backlash will occur which could lead to more public interest outcomes? Or, is it possible that the interest groups studied might “mutate” or change to adapt to future circumstances which could then, in some future period, change the “winning” and “losing” profiles highlighted in this research? Also of interest is whether these findings, which were performed within a relatively unique set of political circumstances, are robust to alternative settings or time periods? These issues are ideal topics for future research projects.

An increasing number of people in Sweden and in the rest of the world are becoming more interested in the mutual fund sector. Investments in mutual funds have grown rapidly these past few years. Nilsson (2004) wrote that 85 percent of the Swedish population invested in mutual funds in 2004. The Swedish Investment Fund Association also found an increase in investments in mutual funds; 83 billion Swedish crowns were invested in mutual funds in 2005, an increase from 56 billion in 2004. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate whether or not there is a relationship between low fee, middle fee, and high fee charging Swedish Equity funds and their respective performance (unadjusted and risk-adjusted returns). The Modigliani & Modigliani (1997) risk-adjusted performance measurement was used to calculate the risk-adjusted performance of the 130 mutual funds. And the linear regression was used to analyze whether or not there was a relationship between the variables (management fee vs. returns/risk-adjusted returns). The mutual funds were also divided into three different categories, based on their management fees; low, middle and high fee mutual funds. The analysis illustrated that there was no clear relationship between the management fee and the returns/risk-adjusted returns. There was some connection found between the management fee and the low, middle fee category. However, this research confirms that investors should not believe that a mutual fund which charges higher fees necessarily generate higher returns.

The purpose of this study is to analyze Swedish hedge funds in terms of pursued investment strategies, risks and returns. The study deals with a large number of quantitative data and delimitations were used to obtain a sample that better fulfills the purpose of this paper. The time frame chosen for increas-ing validity and reliability was almost four years. Furthermore, the study uses secondary data due to difficulties and costs as-sociated with obtaining primary data though this is not consi-dered as lowering the quality of the study. The theory section starts by presenting the differences between hedge funds and mutual funds and then focusing on different hedge fund strategies, risks associated with hedge funds and fi-nally risk and return measurements. This section provides an overview for the empirical findings and analysis. In the empirical findings and analysis, statistical calculations of and Analysis the risk measurements standard deviation, Sharpe ratio, track-ing error and correlation are conducted for the sample. The re-sults are related to the hedge funds strategies. Later on the strategies are weighted against each other. Finally, all strategies are compared to OMXS to find the investors‟ most appropriate investment structure. After categorizing the different hedge funds with respect to pursued strategies, the result shows how there are clear dispari-ties in risk and returns for the different strategies. We found indications of a significant relationship between high return and high risk as well as between low return and low risk.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria (GF) offers new approaches and challenges in international aid for health. Little research is available exploring the experiences of individuals and communities working within the confines of GF policies in Latin America. The study fills this gap through a qualitative exploration of local experiences with tuberculosis (TB) services and the GF in Nicaragua. <p>This study sought to examine local stakeholders (administrators, health personnel and persons affected by TB) experiences related to GF policies relevant to TB services in Nicaragua. The study drew from a population health perspective and was informed by an ethnomethodological approach. Key themes focused on TB control, health systems and health rights. Data collection involved contextual analysis, participant observation, in-depth interviews and focus groups. The study involved 6 months of fieldwork in Nicaragua from November 2005-April 2006. Fieldwork was conducted with the support, participation and assistance of the Centre for Health Research and Studies, the Damian Foundation and the National Tuberculosis Control Program. <p>Analysis of findings shows various internal and external challenges in communication/procedural and disbursement/execution aspects of the GF grant. In TB control, participants identified private sector participation, case detection & reduced abandonment as improvements resulting from the GF project, though sustainability was a key concern. In health systems, concerns of efficiency and efficacy in the use of funds were commonly expressed. The focus on human resource development via the GF was considered a strength of the project. Community participation and the reduction of stigma, two facets of health rights, were perceived to have improved through the GF grant; however, remain identified as key issues for improving the context of TB in Nicaragua. The experiences of people working to implement or receiving TB services and GF activities in Nicaragua offer valuable insight into the strengths and challenges of this country-driven approach to aid for health. The GF needs to give more attention to such experiences a resource for improving flexibility and assuring sustainability in program strengthening and human resource development.

This thesis applies a Partial Integral Differential Equation model, along with a Monte Carlo approach to quantitatively analyze the no arbitrage value of hedge fund performance fees. From a no-arbitrage point of view, the investor in a hedge fund is providing a free option to the manager of the hedge fund. The no-arbitrage value of this option can be locked in by the hedge fund manager using a simple hedging strategy. Interpolation methods, grid construction techniques and parallel computation techniques are discussed to improve the performance of the numerical methods for valuing this option.

This thesis applies a Partial Integral Differential Equation model, along with a Monte Carlo approach to quantitatively analyze the no arbitrage value of hedge fund performance fees. From a no-arbitrage point of view, the investor in a hedge fund is providing a free option to the manager of the hedge fund. The no-arbitrage value of this option can be locked in by the hedge fund manager using a simple hedging strategy. Interpolation methods, grid construction techniques and parallel computation techniques are discussed to improve the performance of the numerical methods for valuing this option.