China is one of the fastest growing markets of today and attracts billions of dollars in foreign direct investments. Swedish companies have not been late to follow and operate on the Chinese market driven by opportunities in sales, production, and sourcing. However, there has been limited research made on how and why Swedish companies extend their sourcing efforts in China. By combining research within the internationalization of export activities, concepts from global sourcing, and gathered empirical data from leading Swedish companies operating in China, the thesis develops a framework for analyzing the internationalization process of sourcing in China..

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.

AbstractDate              2009-06-07Level             Master thesis in Information Technology and Business Administration, 15 hp, EIK024Authors        Anna Karlsson, akn05009@student.mdh.se                      Lena-Maria Lindström, llm05002@student.mdh.seTutor            Peter EkmanTitle              IT Governance with an IT investment focusKeywords     IT Governance, IT investments, IT decisions Problem       To control and manage IT and IT functions in the organization has been a big challenge for many businesses for a long time. In order to make the management of IT more efficient IT Governance is needed. If the organization is going to be successful IT Governance is necessary and this type of governance enables a more effective use of IT that supports the business and its operations. The problem questions for this thesis are: How is the company?s IT Governance built up? How are decisions regarding the company?s IT investments taken? How is the connection between the company?s IT investments and the company?s IT Governance?Purpose        The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze how a company?s IT Governance is built up and how the company uses IT Governance to reach the desired results from the IT investments.Method        The thesis is a qualitative study.

This thesis is based on a case study of the City of Stockholm. The study aims to explore the effects on the city's large investments caused by the public reform. Furthermore, the question concerns the character of the impact and if it will affect what type of investments that will be prioritized. The theoretical background is based on Brunsson's ideas about political organizations shifting towards corporate nature, and Almqvist's interpretation of New Public Management (NPM). Moreover, models explaining public management reform, and the main components of corporate shifting, are used.

The main purpose of the essay was to evaluate whether investments in index-linked bonds were suitable investments for smaller investors on the international finance market. To determine whether the index-linked bonds are good investments, the variables yield, cost and risk were used to measure the index-linked bonds against investments in stocks and funds. The reason for the interest in this subject is that investments in index-linked bonds have grown furiously the last few years. With the growth of the investments the criticism of index-linked bonds has also grown stronger. The critics? main point is the cost of the product, and they imply that investors can create their own index-linked bond and thereby avoid the bank fees.This study used a quantitative approach, because all the data of yield, cost and risk consist of numbers.

Title: Inflation and Investments, with Focus on Inflation-linked Bonds.Investors face many types of risks when allocating assets in a portfolio, e.g. volatility and inflation risk. Inflation risk will mainly affect investments in the long perspective. This thesis will examine those risks that an investor is commonly exposed to when allocating assets in a portfolio and in particular inflation-linked risk and how to eliminate it. We examine the correlation between different assets and inflation to determine the assets? ability to hedge inflation risk.

Purpose:The purpose of this study is to improve the knowledge regarding how entrepreneurial companies act and behave in relation to human capital, by studying their decision-making process for human capital investments. Furthermore this study shall enrich the understandings for how their way of handling human capital investments might change over time along with the development, growth and aging of the company.Methodology:For this case study the authors have chosen a qualitative approach. The authors have collected the empirical data by interviewing the CEO?s of six different entrepreneurial companies. To be able to process and analyze the empirical data the authors have used various theoretical frameworks and also previous studies.Theoretical framework:The theoretical framework brings up human capital and its importance, but also its role in the entrepreneurial company.

During the period 2009-2013, investments in the Swedish national grid increase by a factor of ten compared to previous years. In order to fulfil their mission to manage the national grid in a safe, efficient and environmentally sound way, Svenska Kraftnät (Swedish National Grid) needs to take all these perspectives into account while planning new investments. To compare and relate perspectives of technology, economy and environment the same yard stick must be used. That yard stick is commonly money. A problem arises however as environmental issues are difficult to price.The purpose of this master?s degree project was to develop a tool for evaluation of environmental impact related to investments in the Swedish national grid.

Municipal Real Estate Companies runs by a political boarder who makes decisions in large investments. In some cases the municipal counter have to take the decisions about big and expensive investments. A successful investment needs to be built on solid ground.Media has lately focused on energy topics as a part of the environmental discussion and the real estate companies tries to use the new technology that the market has provided. Energy investments in new buildings are not longer a small part of the energy saving program. Long-term investment demands needs large knowledge and awareness about the energy topics that have recently grown in the municipal real estate companies.

Title: Investor or Maecenas? ? A study on the usage of venture capital within the Swedish film industry.Author: Tobias MagnussonSupervisors: Ahmad Ahmadi, Clas GunnarssonPurpose: The purpose with this thesis is to complement the research on procurement of capital within the Swedish film industry.Methodology: The primarily research method that have been used to gather material is qualitative interviews, that has been performed with four individuals that are active in the Swedish film industry.Theory: In order to create an adequate theoretical base, theories regarding investments and cultural entrepreneurship are presented.Empirics: In this chapter the results of the interviews are presented, sorted in several subcategories. The material is thereafter analyzed and discussed in the following chapter, with the theoretical base in mind.Conclusion: The usage of venture capital within the Swedish film industry is relatively low today. Non-monetary values are the primary reason to invest in the Swedish film industry today. A significant risk diversification, together with knowledge dispersion needs to be made in order to make the Swedish film industry more attractive to investors.

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..

Earth?s resources have been exploited unsustainably. If an entire conception of exploitationof natural resources does not change now, this will entail enormous costs in the future.This insight has lead to a recently increased interest in clean technologies among privateequity capitalists. In the fourth quarter of 2006 about 10 percent of all private equityinvestments made in the US market were placed in the cleantech industry. Despite a goodinvesting climate in Sweden, Swedish capitalists have shown little interest in cleantechinvestments.

This thesis seeks to explain the effect of private equity ownership on the amount of invest- ments made in a company. We use three capital expenditure based key ratios to determine if there is a tendency for private equity owned firms to invest more or less than comparable companies. Our dataset involve 27 Swedish buyout companies that were sold by a private equity fund between 2001 and 2009. Each buyout is assigned a peer group of two firms in similar size and in the same industry. Firstly, we compare the key ratios to determine potential differences in the level of investment.

Scania?s discount rate - the return requirement of investments - refers to Scania?s WACC or weighted average cost of capital. The capital markets return requirement on equity and the credit market interest cost of borrowing is weighted to become the single discount rate, the WACC. The purpose of this study is to investigate which asset pricing model of APT and CAPM Scania should use in their WACC calculations. The company now uses a group WACC of 11 percent which is used in all company levels.

This study investigates how the concept of Social Responsible Investment (SRI) can be applied to futures trading. More specifically, this study examines the possibility of creating a SRI-product for an investor, active in futures investments within commodities, energies and stock indices, and the content of such a product is suggested. We conducted a qualitative study, based on a number of interviews. The study suggests that investments in futures of specific assets are to be equated with investments directly in the underlying assets from a SRI point of view. Therefore, we analyzed the underlying assets of futures traded commodities, energies and stock indices, and used social screening, together with specific screening criteria, for the analysis.