Decision-making and valuation when buying small caps is a poorly explored area. Likewise, since disputes about deficiencies in the company?s financial and legal standing are, almost without exception, resolved in arbitration with confidentiality requirements for both sides, there is very little empirical knowledge about such disputes. This paper hopes to add empiric experience by describing such a take-over ? the purchase of the Jon Blund companies.

Revisorns oberoende är ett ämne som det har diskuterats mycket kring det senaste årtiondet och efter de senaste årens redovisningsskandaler har äm-net aktualiserats igen. Det är ett svårgripbart ämne och det är upp till revisorn själv att avgöra om han/hon är oberoende och när detta är hotat. Revisorns huvudsakliga uppgift är att granska företagens årsredovisning, bokföring samt dess förvaltning. Det här ska genomföras självständigt och oberoende från företaget och andra intressenter. Revisorns roll har utvecklats från att endast vara en renodlad kontrollant till att idag även agera som konsult, vilket medfört att revisorns oberoende ställning ifrågasatts allt oftare.

Husqvarna is a world leading producer of chainsaws with a well-established brand name. Husqvarna now has an interest in investigating the possibiltiy to expand their production of chains and guide bars to include cutting equipment for timber-harvesters.This project is a technical study which aims to answer questions about cutting equipment for timber-harvesters that have been decided in cooperation with Husqvarna. The questions have mainly been focused on forces, cutting speeds, service and maintenance -as well as general questions regarding the size of the Swedish market.Two methods have been applied to answer the questions. Interviews with retailers of harvesters, producers of harvester heads and harvester drivers.The main findings in this project show that there is a relatively small selection of harvester chains on the Swedish market. In contrast to the selection of harvester chains the selection of guide bars is quite large.

Over a long period of time, there has been a rich debate in the academic and financial world if active management can generate an excess return. Many experts say that the current active management strategies is nothing more than a money grab that produces large gains, for banks and investment firms, through high management fees while producing no excess value for the individuals buying their service. In short, an effective market makes it almost impossible for fund managers to produce value for their clients in the long run.No argument has only one side though, other experts say that active management has a role to play because not all investors are rational. This irrationality can lead to mispricing on financial assets in the marketplace and in turn lead to an ineffective market where active management can fill a much needed role. The purpose of this study is therefore to see if active management strategies can create a higher risk adjusted return, taking management fees into consideration, during times of high volatility when the uncertainty is at its peak.

Obesity and overweight are today classified as one of the largest epidemics in the Western world and is threaten a large part of the population. As a reaction to this a major health trend has emerged in recent decades. Every day consumers are exposed to information from the media about what is healthy or unhealthy to eat and the recommendations change frequently.There is great interest in healthy food on the Swedish food market, but still healthy foods only represents a small proportion of the total food sales. The essay examines the gap between the current and potential demand for healthy food and if it can be explained by any of the following factors: lack of information, price, taste or cognitive behavioral.To study these questions a quantitative method have been used and 213 questionnaires were collected. The intention is to draw general conclusions about the entire population.

The number of women in Swedish firms of accountant is not lower then the number of men, but when we compared the number of chartered auditors, the number of women are low compared to men. This is connected to the public debate that is mainly emphasising that there are no differences between men and women and therefore the sexes should be treated equal. The method used is a qualitative study and the primary data was collected through interviews. The respondents consist of members, women as well as men, from eighteen auditors in Malmö and Kristianstad. The result shows that both male and female characters are needed in the work on the firm of accountants.

This essay describes and compares the extensive reindeer management to the more intensive, but grazing based, sheep management system in Sweden. Differences and similarities between the two production systems will be investigated by elucidating the economy, land use and possibilities to influence production and economy through breeding, feeding and product development. The reindeer management area covers the northern part of Sweden whilst the sheep management is dispersed over the country. Both reindeer and sheep are ruminants and have relatively high demands on the quality and digestibility of the feed however reindeers graze on mountain-and forest lands whilst sheep often graze inaccessible areas or cultivated grasslands. Selection intensity is generally lower in the reindeer management compared to the intensity in sheep breeding.

In Sweden there are 1894 small-scale hydropower plants in operation, which together generate 4.3 TWh of electricity per year according to Swedish hydropower compound (SVKF, 2011). This corresponds to the annual consumption of about 860,000 Swedish households (based on an annual consumption of 5000 kWh). In the mid-1950s there were around 4000 small-scale hydropower plants in operation in Sweden before cheap fossil fuels and uranium competed with them, in the current situation only 1,894 of these are in use. If slumbering small hydropower plants once again would be taken into use and some new ones are built, we would be able to extract about 7 TWh of renewable electricity from these annually in Sweden, representing about 1.4 million households.The thesis intends to calculate and construct a hydroelectric power plant at the existing dam in Olofsfors and give suggestions on how the power station should run during the time that fish migration is greatest in Leduån.The turbine and generator to the station in Leduån at Olofsfors is designed by the height of the fall and the water flow through the dam. The turbine selected for the station is a CK-1000RM turbine with a 4-pole 250 kW generator from Cargo & power turbine Sweden AB, which is expected to deliver 1.2 GWh per year.

The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding of why convertible bonds are a relatively uncommon financing method in Sweden. The aim is to find the explanatory factors for this situation. The analysis is based on interviews conducted from three perspectives; the investor?s, the adviser?s and the issuer?s. The main finding is that the Swedish financial market has characteristics that inhibit the development of a convertible bond market in Sweden, leading to the fact that most convertible bonds are issued under special circumstances.

This study aims to investigate how small scale manufacturing companies reason around an implementation of a PLM-system, as well as the suitability of these systems compared to larger companies. The study is built on a qualitative method. Initially, secondary data was gathered through books, articles and reports. Primary data was gathered through four interviews. Two interviews were performed with PLM resellers, one interview was performed with a PLM developer, and one interview was performed with a small scale manufacturing company that opted to not implement a PLM-system.The results imply that overall differences between larger and smaller companies exist in regard to the need of PLM systems.

In the forest sector, non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners commonly interact with numerous stakeholders (e.g. forest managers, timber buyers, harvesting contractors and advisors) for counseling, planning, selling and hiring. Forest management is therefore built and influenced by the relationships between NIPF owners and other stakeholders. In the local context of a Southern Sweden, the Swedish Forest Agency (SFA) and the Southern Forest Owners Association (SÖDRA) are very influential stakeholders in small-scale forest management. Based on qualitative interviews and by means of grounded theory, an analysis of the relationships between NIPF owners and the mentioned organizations was carried out in order to understand the social context at the genesis of forest management decisions.

Scania CV is one of the world's largest truck manufacturer. It is not only the directproduction of vehicles and methods that are important for Scania but also the servicemarket handling spare parts, repairs and workshops. The department Vehicle ServiceInformation construct standard times through work measurement for particularworks in the workshops. The software application STAM is used in the servicemarket to create and store standard times which then are exported to theworkshops' own systems.The purpose of this master thesis is to analyse and evaluate the internal workmeasurement system that includes standard times and the software STAM. Also,based on external analysis and benchmarking of other systems suggest appropriatefuture development within the area for Scania Vehicle Service Information.In order to perform the investigation, interviews and studies have been doneinternally at the departments that are involved in work measurement as well asexternally at Scania workshops.

Credits are considered as a natural financing form for all types of companies. The financial market in Sweden is dominated by four banks and the credit appraisals that are done by these banks are partly based on credit reports from external companies. This thesis? purpose is to increase the knowledge of which the consequences of payment remarks can imply for companies in relation to the banks. A qualitative study has been done to relay to the purpose, through the means of interviews with four companies, four banks, one rating institute and a collecting agency.

The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.

The purpose of this study is using McDonald?s in China and Sweden as a case to find out how fast food restaurant retailers combine adaptation and standardization with symbolic attributes of store atmospherics under different cultural background, and find out possible reasons. The study used McDonald?s in a case format to study in-store atmospheres. Further, the research has an investigating and explanatory qualitative approach, collecting the empirical data through observation with photos.