The Private Equity industry has over the past years been booming and major external environmental changes have made the industry transform rapidly. Increased competition between Private Equity firms is one of the reasons why the industry has been and is being forced to focus more on addition of value through increased operational management. Consequently, the focus of value addition is by some said to be transferred away from deal making and financial skills, and into active operative management. This case study investigates how the portfolio management, and more specifically the measuring and management of performance, is carried out in a number of leading Swedish Private Equity funds with investments in the biotech sector. The biotech sector is characterized by extensive research and development, and many biotech companies often lack income and other measurable financial parameters in the initial phase.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate meals and eating in one day for at least ten truck or lorry drivers. Another aim was to investigate the attitudes by the drivers to food and meals and their expectations on the meals. This is a qualitative study conducted in ten interviews, seven of which were over the phone. The interviews were semi-structured and took about twenty minutes for each driver. Data relating to the food choices for one day were collected and questions asked about their attitudes to food and meals were collected simultaneously.

The project was performed in collaboration with Husqvarna, one of the world?s leading manufacturer in the market of electric outdoor products. The report is a thesis work of a bachelor mechanical engineer program, in the field product development and design.The project is a study of the development opportunities within drive belt for a gear driven gearbox to one of Husqvarnas petrol powered hedge trimmers. A big part of the project was also to find combinations of materials for all components in the gearbox, to reduce weight and maintain or improve the performance of the system. Belt drive was of interest to investigate as an alternative solution to the current design that can reduce wear on the system at a performance test performed in the company before the product is released to market.

In this paper we investigate 67 Swedish buyouts in the manufacturing and retailing sector between the years 2004-2012. The purpose is to measure changes in a set of financial key ratios to see if private equity firms are able to improve performance in their portfolio companies compared to a peer group consisting of other firms within the same industries. Furthermore, we examine if there is a difference in the change of the financial key ratios between private equity-owned firms in the two sectors. The key results are that the private equity owned firms have not outperformed their peers with respect to the chosen key ratios. We also conclude that there is no significant difference in the change of the financial key ratios between private equity-owned firms in the two sectors..

Public concern and the need of responsible way of doing business have brought forward the issue of sustainability at the forefront of discussion in the last decade. Even though, food retailers are playing an important role in the economy, they are exposed for criticism by media and consumers for any socially and environmentally irresponsible business practices because, the potential environmental and social impacts from their operations are significant. These impacts need to be recognized and properly addressed. The main objective of this study was to assess the sustainable business management of a cooperative food retail business in Sweden, known as Konsum Värmland (KV). The necessary data and information on history and status of KV, and its practical activities concerning the implementation of sustainable development programs as well as the motivation and challenges encountered by KV during the implementation were gathered via reviewing different documents, research papers and press releases; interviewing decision makers and other personnel in KV and other researchers from Swedish University of Agricultural University who have investigated KV.

The body that is? You have to take care of the body is an ethnological study of how children look at body and health from their own perspective. During five weeks I did a field work in a school in Uppsala, Sweden. Ten fifth grade students and two teachers were interviewed. They were also participants in observations and did paintings.

Syftet med studien var att skapa en bättre förståelse för hur några juniorishockeyspelare och deras tränare ser på hur faktorerna lagsammanhållning, spelaromsättning, roller och prestation förhåller sig till varandra och hur de arbetade med dessa faktorer. Instrumenten som användes var GEQ (Group Environment Questionnaire) och två helstrukturerade intervjuguider. Deltagarna i studien var ishockeyspelarna i ett J18-lag (n=18) och deras tränare (n=1) i en medelstor klubb i Sverige. Resultatet visade att samtliga intervjudeltagare upplevde ett positivt samband mellan lagsammanhållning, spelaromsättning, rollklarhet och prestation. Sambandet beskrevs dock som cirkulärt, att alla faktorerna var beroende av varandra och påverkades av varandra.

In the last couple of decades, corporate law firms have rapidly grown to become both influential and highly profitable corporations in the business world. Today, the largest law firms are assumed to bear far greater resemblance to large and often multinational public limited companies than the small businesses generally associated with legal services. However, one interesting specific set them apart from the majority of other companies; the partnership and its interrelated profit sharing. The aim of this study has therefore been to investigate partner compensation systems in corporate law firms and further examine what implications chosen compensation systems have on the organizations. Using a multiple case study, including 7 of Scandinavia?s largest and most well known law firms, the results show that partner compensation systems are highly individual and the critical question is whether to employ seniority based or performance based compensation systems.

The DuPont formula is one of the most well known and basic tools used for financial statement analysis and is highly useful for understanding firms strategies and operating environment. Previous studies on American listed companies have also shown that analysis of the changes in the DuPont components is useful in forecasting contexts. In this thesis we test whether disaggregating the change in return on net operating assets provides incremental information about future performance for Swedish listed and not listed companies. We find that the change in asset turnover is a leading indicator of increased profitability for both listed and private companies, regardless of size. We also find evidence that the usefulness of the disaggregation for understanding future performance is greater in capital intense industries and lesser in service industries..

Syfte: Att identifiera de problem och/eller svårigheter som uppstått efter införandet av IAS 39 och dess krav på att finansiella instrument ska värderas till verkligt värde. Metod: Uppsatsen har genomförts med hjälpa av en induktiv metod. Primärdata har samlats in genom kvalitativa intervjuer. Sekundärdata består av facklitteratur och vetenskapliga artiklar. Teoretiska perspektiv: Teorin om det institutionella tänkandet har använts samt Streek & Schmitters modell.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate meals and eating in one day for at least ten truck or lorry drivers. Another aim was to investigate the attitudes by the drivers to food and meals and their expectations on the meals. This is a qualitative study conducted in ten interviews, seven of which were over the phone. The interviews were semi-structured and took about twenty minutes for each driver. Data relating to the food choices for one day were collected and questions asked about their attitudes to food and meals were collected simultaneously.

The actual project presents the development of a testing rig for a steam engine. A short overviewabout the development of steam engines is presented, until arriving to the development of thepresent engine, which will require to be tested in different ways.The testing rig studied on this project (based on a Lanchester engine) will be used to testdifferent materials and layouts for the group Piston-Cylinder.The engine is a high performance steam power engine, which is going to have a highpower/dimensions ratio, what will lead to require high performance components and materials.An introduction to the testing rig is presented, and the entire design project is done in order toreplace the disappeared documentation of the current testing rig, built on the 1970?s. Also somemodifications done in the original testing rig are presented, as well as some detected problemsand their possible solutions..

A literature review of contaminants; cadmium, methylmercury, dioxins, and PCB, for eleven different fish species (Greenland halibut, gilt headed bream, sea bass, wolffish, hoki, ocean perch, angler, Nile perch, pangasius, red snapper and tilapia) that were selected in concurrence with the National Food Administration. The result can be used by the National Food Administration to gain further knowledge about the different fish species to be able to continue to give advice to varied risk category and the public. The gilt headed bream and sea bass were the only fishes whose values for mercury exceeded the limit of 0,5 mg/kg (EU Reg. 1881/2006). In the angler, Nile perch and pangasius the mean value of mercury didn?t exceed the limit, however in some individuals the mercury content did exceed what is allowed.

Organizational learning has become more and more important in the last decades as the environment in which organizations exist continues to change rapidly and unexpectedly. In order for organizational learning to happen, the individuals within the organization must learn. Just as different individuals possess different skills, each individual also has their own learning style. As the use of teamwork increases, so does the need for techniques to put high performing teams together and with organizational learning as one of the objectives the question is, how do we maximize learning, efficiency and performance in teams? This study uses a quantitative method to examine how teams, from a course at the Stockholm School of Economics, perform on the individual learning, team efficiency and team performance scale based on the individual learning styles within the team.

This paper presents a study that evaluates the performance of stock recommendations issued on Swedish stocks during 2003. The selection of recommendations in this paper originates from banks, major brokerage firms and financial press located in Sweden. The total of 171 recommendations consisted of 99 buy recommendations and 72 sell recommendations. Forecast revisions presented in this paper suggest that Investment managers have no ability to predict performance winners, nor do their forecasts in general have any significant impact on stock prices. A mere 50 percent of the recommendations in this revision had a weak ability to outperform their benchmark indexes as in other similar revisions.