This thesis studies the relationship between risk and the first day returns of Initial Public Offerings (IPO) by assessing the risk of each issuing company with a risk model that combine financial key ratios of importance. The study is based on 92 IPO?s that were made on the Stockholm OMX stock exchange during the period of 1997-2009. The point of departure was to investigate if the uncertainty created by the asymmetric information between Investors and the issuing firm could be captured by predicting the possibility of failure in the future. This has been studied by applying Skogsvik?s probability of failure model on the 92 issuing firms.

The Sub-Saharan countries have for a long time struggled with poverty and conflicts which might have proven hostile for Investors. The analysis aims to see if there is a significant correlation between foreign direct investments (FDI) and economic growth and which cultural and institutional factors seem to be significant in this correlation. Considered are also other variables and their influence that might explain what motivates and gives incentives for foreign direct investments (FDI) and are used in the construction of a regression analysis. This to see whether there is an effect on the economic growth in relations to FDI. The results show that FDI is of significance to the economic growth in the region and the study shows that corruption seems to be the most significant institutional factor in the correlation with effect on economic growth and the ability to attract FDI..

The purpose of this master thesis is to evaluate how the current share price and market consensus affect security analysts target price and if an investor should pay any attention to it. Empirical data is primarily collected from qualitative interviews with ten security analysts but also from a quantitative e-mail survey. Our main finding is that security analysts are indeed affected by each others earnings forecasts as well as the current share price. This is not strange, it is in several aspects rational. Security analysts has often nothing to gain by standing out too much and not either by spending too much time trying to create their own opinions due to lack of time or the complexity of what is analyzed.

How debt affects companies is an issue that has received much attention. The fact that researchers disagree can make it hard for companies to choose a financingpolicy that maximizes the value of the firm and its return on equity. In a world with Investors that are seeking to maximize profits the value of the firm can be affected differently by different economic conditions. The intention of this study is to answer these issues with quantitive methods, with focus on year 2010 and 2009, where the value of the firm is defined as P/E and P/B ratio. The outcome showed that liabilities only affected return on equity significant in one of four cases, and liabilites didn?t affect the value of companies significantly in any of these.

According to the current regulations described in IAS 27 - Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements, an investment company is required to consolidate all entities that it controls. However, this thesis outlines the creation of a new system, where those entities are instead measured at fair value, taking changes in fair value into account in the income statement. By recalculating the consolidated accounts for five major investment companies in accordance with the new system, this investigation concludes that the new system would provide Investors with more relevant but less reliable accounting information. In addition, the historical financial performance of Investor, Industrivärden, Ratos, Kinnevik, and Lundbergföretagen, is evaluated using their recalculated consolidated financial statements. The evaluation indicates that the overall volatility in the companies' consolidated financial statements would have been higher during the time period 2005-2009, in comparison to official reports..

I början av 2000-talet avslöjades flera stora redovisningsskandaler i USA. Stora amerikanskaföretag som Enron och Worldcom lyckades genom svekfull redovisning vilseleda marknadenatt tro att deras finansiella ställning var avsevärt bättre än vad det visade sig vara. Enronförsökte t.ex. gömma stora skulder genom att inte ta upp dem i balansräkningen, dettaarrangerades av Enrons finanschef med samtycke från revisorerna och bolagets styrelse. Närskandalen avslöjades och Enron tvingades ta med de korrekta siffrorna i balansräkningen blevkonsekvensen att företaget fick begära konkurs.

The purpose of the study is to investigate whether insiders generate an abnormal return compared with other Investors on the Swedish Stock Market. This abnormal return is defined as the cumulative average abnormal return (CAAR). The other purpose is to investigate whether it would be profitable for ?outsiders? to mimic the transactions of insider trades. The results indicate several significant abnormal returns on insider trades, especially on buy transactions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate analysts' and Investors' possibility to compare different companies' information in accounting for goodwill under IFRS in their annual and semi-annual reports. The study was based on IAS 34 on interim reporting, IAS 36 impairment of goodwill and the comparability requirement of the financial statements. Therefore, the comparability requirements? of the IASB Framework, previous studies on the comparability after the implementation of IFRS and also the relevance of goodwill was studied. We used a qualitative textual analysis to examine whether the recognition of goodwill is considered to be comparable between our sample of companies' annual and semi-annual reports from 2008 and 2009 data.

Corporate failures pose a problem for banks, Investors, customers, employees andinsurers. With a multivariate discrimination method, the study aims to find the specificfinancial ratios that most accurate reveals a company's financial health, which is ofinterest to all of the above parties. The data consist of 1042 Swedish small enterprisesand 30 different financial ratios between the years 2005?2007. The result shows thatbankrupt firms three years before bankruptcy have a disadvantaged capital structurewith poor solvency and high debt.

People who invest capital in promising projects as a profession are called venture capitalists. They are constantly looking for new investment opportunities. Recently, media have observed a growing interest in forest land as capital investment. This is because several fund and investment company market the possibility of safe return through investment in woodland, both in Sweden and abroad. When an investment in forests is seen as an acceptable investment option, focus turns to nearby areas, namely agricultural land.

The last few decades largeincreases in institutional and foreign ownershipin Swedish listed companies have created a concernthat the traditionalSwedish ownership model are disappearing.With increasing globalizationand ever morecapital-intensive markets, so have great owners forced to admitcapital fuelled institutionaland foreign Investors into their companies. By from an agency theoryperspective examine how different ownershiptypes and ownershipconstellations affects the cost ofequity, we want to see if there is reason for concern. Is the change in ownership structure affecting theSwedish listed firms?Our results show that the owneridentity or ownership constellations don?t affect the cost of equity that much.The only owner-identity that shows a significant correlation with the cost ofequity is the institutions and they relate to a lower cost of equity. Theresults show that companies with two controlling shareholders relates to lowercost of equity which can show that ownership structure affects the cost.

Prior studies have shown that earnings management can be used either to inform or to mislead Investors about the future performance of a company. However, few studies have examined the impact of earnings management on forecasting return on equity (ROE). The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether the ability to forecast next year's ROE is improved when taking earnings management, measured as discretionary accruals, into account. This is examined by comparing a forecast model that takes the magnitude of discretionary accruals into consideration with a model that does not. The study is based on companies that were listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during 2002-2012.

Over-Investors ? a study of advanced language pupils in the upper secondary school.  The thesis examines the advanced study of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) from a sociological point of view, inspired by Bourdieu.  Founded in official statistics and a specially designed survey its main findings can be said to be that it is mainly pupils with a high amount of acquired educational capital from higher social backgrounds who avail themselves of this opportunity, predominantly girls. The amount of inherited language and transnational capital in the family seems to be of particular importance for the pupils? choice of advanced language studies. French, German and Spanish are the predominant languages of study.

The first of January 2005 all companies listed on a stock exchange within the European Unionhad to implement International Financial Accounting Standards (IFRS) in their annual report.But is this regulation for the good or worse and does the benefits outweigh the cost? The goalwith the regulation is to make it easier for Investors, shareholders and other stakeholders tomake financial decisions, compare domestic as well as international companies at the samecondition. One of the differences with the introduction of the new regulation is IFRS 3 thathandles business combination and how goodwill and intangible assets from the acquiredcompany should be accounted for. The objectives of our dissertation is to identify those listedcompanies that have made one or more acquisition between the years 2005 to 2006 andmeasure their level of disclosure concerning goodwill and intangible assets through theacquisition. We concluded trough the results that positive accounting theory and systemorientated theory didn?t explain all the verities in the companies? disclosures.

This thesis purpose was to contribute to knowledge which could explain the driving forces behind Corporate Social Responsibility in corporate Sweden and their strategic impact from a management perspective. The method used to archive this research was a qualitative interpretative study conducted by interviews. The thesis is based on descriptive theories of drivers for CSR, concepts of strategy and CSR and normative/instrumental theories suggesting a strategic approach to CSR and stakeholder management. The empirical study is based on interviews with Swedish business managers in a strategic board position as well as consultants working with CSR strategies, supported with internet information from companies? webpage.