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M.Com. (Investment Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2013. / Unit trust investment looks cosy and attractive from the surface, but a detailed understanding of unit trust and its performance can be daunting. Having discussed the evolution of mutual funds in the US and other industrial and financially sound countries; it is concerning that not much has been done in terms of research works on the South Africa unit trust industry’s performance. Several studies have been aimed at investigating the investment in mutual funds relative to mutual fund returns, but an extensive study on the performance of active unit trusts against their bench-marking index is still lacking. This study contributes to the debate by conducting a detailed study of the performances of mutual funds in the last two decades and also what the global investment fund witnessed over this period, with particular interest in the South African market. Another contribution of this study was to provide reasons for the slow growth of investment funds in South Africa; this study attempts to ascribe reasons as to why this has been so. This study used three different performance measures (namely: the nominal returns, Sharpe Ratios and CAPM Alphas) to test the possibility of superior performance by the market or the funds. In order to carry out this detailed analysis of the performance of unit trusts, these performance tests were applied individually to the net returns obtained from a sample of 64 South African domestic general equity unit trusts, covering the 20-year period from January 1st 1992 to December 31st 2011. This 20-year period was further divided into 7 different periods of four 5-year periods, two 10-year periods and the whole 20-year period. This was done to avoid survivorship bias. In all of the periods, strong evidence of superior performance by the domestic general equity unit trust over the market could not be found. Furthermore, several reasons were deduced form the study as to investment funds continue to experience slow growth. Some of the reasons include the following: cost of index fund, investor’s sentiments, and commissions amongst others. Finally, having said all these, outperformance, perhaps may not be the main objective of unit trusts. The findings of this study may not have provided strong evidence of outperformance, it however reveal that there is a need for unit trusts to evaluate the costs and benefits involved in their trading activities in order to provide investors with maximum possible returns for the level of risk they take.

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

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Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on February 1, 2010). A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing, School of Business. At head of title: University of Alberta. Spring 2010. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2004. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-109).

Thesis (LL. M.)--York University, 1993. Graduate Programme in Law. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 345-359). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ39228.

Global investors often invest in publicly traded indirect real estate (IRE) such as Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) and listed property companies rather than physical real estate asset in order to get exposure in foreign real estate markets for a number of reasons that mainly originated from the high transaction cost in the direct real estate (DRE) market. However, in reality IRE is not a perfect substitute of DRE and that the substitutability between IRE and DRE varies across markets. Very little is known about the factors that contributed to the variation. One possible contributing factor is the variation in the degree of real estate market transparency across markets, which is seldom examined in the previous studies. This thesis provides empirical evidence on the impact of real estate market transparency on the linkages between IRE and DRE. This study examines two aspects of IRE-DRE linkages, namely, return (first moment) linkages and volatility (second moment) linkages. This thesis uses style analysis to measure return linkages and variance decomposition to measure volatility linkages. After that, the correlations between IRE-DRE linkages and Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL)’s global real estate market transparency index will be examined. The empirical results show that the JLL global real estate market transparency index does have a positive impact on the linkages between IRE and DRE, especially on the volatility linkages. In addition, regulatory and legal transparency sub-index as well as real estate transaction process transparency sub-index have the strongest impact on both return and volatility IRE-DRE linkages. A highly-developed legal system as well as consistent regulatory enforcement (as measured by the degree of fairness treatment towards both domestic and foreign investors) ensures that real estate investors’ rights are well protected and thus the values of the underlying real estate asset are reflected in the IRE, which strengthens the IRE-DRE linkages. In addition, having a well-functioning regulatory and legal framework also means that DRE market transaction information is reliable which can be used for more accurate valuations. This assists investors in valuing the IRE based on their audited financial statements and thus strengthens the IRE-DRE linkages. Real estate transaction process transparency refers to market transparency in both pre-sale and spot real estate market. The presale market is essentially a forward market. Price information in the spot market can assist investors in assessing the future prospect of IRE and thus facilitates the price discovery process between the IRE and DRE. High transparency in the presale market therefore lead to stronger IRE-DRE linkages. The findings of this study provide several implications for global investors and local policy makers. Though emerging markets, which have low market transparency, are playing a more and more significant role in international real estate investment portfolios, global investors should understand the limitation of investing IRE as a means to gain exposure in DRE since the IRE-DRE linkages are usually weak in emergent markets. On the other hand, policy makers should spend more efforts to increase real estate market transparency if they wish to attract investments from global investors. In particular, policy makers should aim at improving the regulatory and legal framework as well as enhancing the transaction process transparency. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Master / Master of Philosophy

Companies and indeed governments all over the world have tried to secure the future of their employees by setting up pension schemes (Wallace 2002). However, pension contributions might become a huge unbearable expenditure for some organizations, as this presentation will show. While initially most companies willing to set up a pension scheme would almost always regard the Defined Benefit (DB) Pension Scheme as the scheme of first choice, the trend has since changed (Ross and Wills 2002) over the years. Possible causes responsible for this shift in focus are many (Twinney 1995). The shift could have contributed to some companies sponsoring Defined Benefit schemes to have a rethink on which type of pension scheme to operate. Zambezi River Authority is a quasi-government entity operating in both Zambia and Zimbabwe. It set up a DB pension scheme for its employees in 1987 and has not been spared from this pressure to re-examine its pension fund. In recent years the Zambezi River Authority Pension Scheme has recorded huge shortfalls (Zambezi River Authority Pension Scheme Accounts 1999 to 2004). This has resulted in the employer struggling to pay up his pension obligations. Sooner or later, if nothing is done, the pension scheme will probably not be able to meet the objectives for which it was set up. The purpose of this study is to investigate and discuss the problems being faced by the Zambezi River Authority Pension Scheme. The paper outlines the different types of pension funds and compares them with the type of fund the Zambezi River Authority operates. The results of this study show that while the benefit structure of the Zambezi River Authority Pension Fund could have been relevant at the time the fund was set up, circumstances have substantially changed from what they were then. It is argued in the study that if no action is taken, the Zambezi River Authority Pension Scheme is likely to collapse. It is recommended in the study that the Zambezi River Authority Pension Scheme should be changed from a Defined Benefit Scheme to a Defined Contribution Scheme. It is also recommended that the management of the scheme should be changed and that the scheme should invest in portfolios that bring positive returns. Above all, it is recommended that members should take a more active role in the affairs of their pension scheme. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu Natal, 2006.