Hotel opportunities in Thailand

Despite some obvious problems (pollution and weak infrastructure, for instance), hotel operators remain bullish on Thailand, particularly those who are already operating there     

COSCO explores investment opportunities in Greece

Following plans to offer daily flights on its Vancouver-Shanghai route throughout the summer, China Eastern Airlines announced Monday it would be offering the service permanently beginning Nov. 1.     

Regulatory procedures,investment opportunities and stock valuation

Electric utilities differ in their accounting procedures. By regulatory commission directive some use normalization and some use flow through to arrive at their earnings figures. Because regulation is on an allowed return on investment standard these reported earnings are relevant for stock valuation. Any variation in price/earnings ratios between flow through and normalizing companies therefore must be explained by differences in risk to equity investors, differences in investment opportunities, or market inefficiency involving erroneous restatement of earnings. Empirical work demonstrates that there is a difference in price/earnings ratios. Firms that normalize enjoy a premium. The evidence also indicates that the premium is not explained by risk difference. Because the perverse form of market inefficiency required as an explanation seems unlikely, the most reasonable conclusion is that the premium relates to investment opportunities associated with regulatory climate. If so it promises no excess return to stock buyers because it is already impounded in stock price.     

基于实物期权的企业项目投资时机选择分析

文章简述了实物期权理论,并构造了利用实物期权中的延迟投资期权进行投资时机选择的步骤,以期对企业项目投资决策起一定的指导作用。     

Comment: Regulatory procedures,investment opportunities,and stock valuation

Several recent studies of the effect of accounting treatment on the valuation of electric utilities have concluded that investors appear to favor normalizing firms by pricing equities of such firms relatively higher than the equities of flow-through firms. The observed higher price/earnings ratios (P/E ratios) for normalizing firms have usually been credited to the benefits of normalization, as perceived by investors. This article presents evidence that the observed preference for normalization companies is unrelated to accounting treatment. Rather, this preference is related to the fact that firms that obtain normalization benefits typically have lower costs than those which do not have such benefits. This characteristic of normalization firms results in their relatively higher P/E ratios.     

Selling privatization politically

The number of privatization transactions occurring in the world continues to grow apace. Predictions are that over $6 trillion in privatization assets will be sold over the next 20 years.¹ And while the academic debate continues, practitioners continue to garner lessons on how to overcome both technical and political obstacles to implementing privatization transactions. The emerging lessons indicate that it is possible to achieve considerable efficiency and welfare gains from privatization. The real challenges are in finding creative mechanisms for overcoming the political impediments to privatization. The author analyzes the shift in focus from whether efficiency gains are possible with privatization to how to distribute the benefits. Recent innovations to address political constraints are analyzed, such as the greater use of markets to assess the value of firms, the use of giveaways to garner political support, and the array of instruments available to appease nationalistic fears of foreign takeover.     

The privatization experience in Malaysia: Integrating build-operate-own and build-operate-transfer techniques within the national privatization strategy

The Malaysian privatization program is perhaps the most ambitious program found amongst developing or emerging market economies. While the program did not immediately flourish, it is characterized by its development of a well structured institutional framework and creative use of a series of highly innovative restructuring and privatization techniques, the most exciting being the Build-Own-Operate and Build-Operate-Transfer methods.     

A cross-country investigation of micro-angel investment activity: The roles of new business opportunities and institutions

Building on international business literature and institutional theory, we examine the joint roles of new business opportunity availability and key formal and informal institutions in a country for explaining the incidence of micro-angel investment activity. Micro-angel investments should increase to the extent that countries demonstrate (1) greater availability of new business opportunities, (2) more protective legal systems, and (3) stronger embeddedness of members in interrelationships. More protective legal systems and stronger embeddedness also may play moderating roles, such that they amplify the relationship between the availability of new business opportunities and the incidence of micro-angel investment activity. Finally, legal protection and embeddedness can substitute for each other, such that the effect of one becomes suppressed at higher levels of the other. Data drawn from different cross-national data sources support these hypotheses. This study is among the first to explain cross-country differences in micro-angel investment activity.     

British privatization: Evaluating the results

The 24 studies reviewed here reveal that nine of the 13 primary objectives of the U.K.'s privatization program have substantially been achieved. Privatization has reduced the size and scope of government, reduced political interference in management decisions, freed government funds so they can be used in sectors of the economy other than state-owned businesses, created a free market economy, promoted domestic investment, benefited the economy through higher returns on capital invested in privatized businesses, generated new sources of tax revenue, broadened domestic equity ownership and promoted equity ownership among employees of privatized businesses. Most of the research reviewed concludes that privatization has reduced the government's budget deficit; provided consumers with improved service, better quality, more choices, new products and lower prices; and improved the efficiency and performance of privatized firms. Finally, most of the studies reviewed report mixed results regarding the privatization program's success at reducing government control of business.     

Rigorous privatization: The New Zealand experience

New Zealand's experience with privatization is considered by many to be as near “textbook” as the circumstances of politics and business will permit. Franks' analyzes the privatization strategies followed in radically reforming an economy driven by state-owned enterprises.     

Policy transfer and policy inertia: privatization in Taiwan

In recent years, privatization seems to have been more talked about than carried out in a number of countries. This study looks at the progress of privatization in Taiwan in the light of the literature on policy transfer. Although the government of Taiwan announced a privatization programme in the late 1980s, by the end of 1998 sales of state-owned enterprises had occurred much more slowly than planned. The first part of the article reviews the literature on policy transfer. Policy transfer has been described as the process by which policies transfer from one country to another due to mimetic, normative or coercive effects. Taiwan's privatization programme is then reviewed and the main barriers to change are identified. The study concludes by considering the implications of Taiwan's record on privatization for our understanding of policy transfer in an international context.     

Management buy-outs as an instrument of privatization in Eastern Europe

Privatizing government enterprises is one of the most difficult tasks in the transformation process taking place in the former socialist economies. What contribution do management buy-outs have to make in coping with that task?     

Serving those going private: The role of accountancy in privatization

Privatization, as a term and as an art, has been growing steadily in importance since the 1980s. But what is it, and how is it actually accomplished? Mastrangelo and McPhail set forth a primer explaining the basic concepts of privatization, and the roles taken on by the “Big Six” accounting firms and, to a lesser extent, consultancies and investment banks.     

公用事业民营化改革模式与机制考察

国家倡导公用事业民营化改革,为民营经济进入国资长期一股独大的自然垄断领域开辟了制度通道,但实践中民营企业仍然面临着种种非政策壁垒、协调与信息障碍.本文从发掘生产力潜能的角度考察,在产权成为可交易要素的市场导向改革路径下,公用事业引入民营投资发展混合经济,认为是通过加速规模经济、创新市场业务、利益内化激励提高企业目标耦合度等方式,可以增进自然垄断企业的经营效率.理论与实证分析表明,公用事业民营化改革在为产业注入生机与活力的同时,也为民营经济的发展壮大孕育了一个更开放的政策环境,构建了一个崭新广阔的市场发展空间.