Browsing by Author "Mattsson, Fredrik"

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The Main Step -The Effects on Institutional Ownership of Moving from First North to The Swedish Main List
(2018-06-25) Anstrén, Maximilian; Mattsson, Fredrik; University of Gothenburg/Department of Business Administration; Göteborgs universitet/Företagsekonomiska institutionen
Since NASDAQ’s alternative market place First North was first launched in 2006, many firms have considered the option of taking the next step to the Swedish main exchange – the Stockholm stock exchange. While the alternative marketplace offers much to the young and immature firms, many of them quickly grow up and wish to move on to a more mature marketplace. Since 2006, approximately 60 firms have taken the step from First North to the main Stockholm stock exchange, and many of them offer the same reasoning and arguments to justify such a step. Increasing the amount of institutional ownership is a recurring desire in firms’ prospects prior to a change of lists. There are many reasons why firms wish to acquire more institutional ownership, it might be to improve corporate governance or to attain the firm a seal of quality. This paper examines the effects on institutional ownership of a listing change from First North to the Swedish main list – the Stockholm stock exchange. The report is directed towards decision makers, management and investors, and intends to compose a basis to help those parties make more informed decisions. It also aims to invite to further research on the area. The study is based on, and inspired by, previous research reports and studies on the area examining the consequences of a listing change, both Swedish and international. The study approaches the research questions with a deductive strategy of quantitative nature. With a method of an event-study the paper examines how the change of list itself affect institutional ownership and shares owned by institutions, by comparing data prior to change and post change. The main findings are that there is a positive effect on the number of institutional owners for firms that undergo the listing change. However, the results do not provide any evidence for an effect on the number of institutionally owned shares. The increase in number of institutional owners is essentially explained by investor awareness effects.
Will Good Deeds Redeem Your Sins? A quantitative study of the effects of corporate charitable donations in a sin stock setting
(2020-08-05) Mattsson, Fredrik; Weber, Herman; University of Gothenburg/Graduate School; Göteborgs universitet/Graduate School
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has received increasing attention from the popular press in general, and academics and the investment community in particular, in the past decade. Corporations are increasingly integrating CSR as part of their business strategies. In sin stocks, CSR is particularly complex and although sin firms have been shown to engage more in CSR activities than non-sin firms there are still uncertainties to the actual effects of CSR in sin stocks. Some recent studies have suggested adverse effects of CSR in sin stocks. Nonetheless, these studies (and a majority of all studies on CSR in sin stocks) examines the effects of overall CSR performance, and we identify a lack of research on individual sub-categories of CSR. A major dimension of CSR is corporate philanthropy, with corporate donations being the most common form. In 2018, corporations in the US alone accounted for $20.05 billion in donations – a 5.4 percent increase from the previous year and an increase of over 40 percent compared to 2009. Despite the ample role of corporate donations in CSR, and a large body of literature related to CSR effects in sin stocks, there are to the best of our knowledge no studies on the effect of corporate donations in sin stocks. This study takes a quantitative approach to further the understanding of CSR in sin stocks, and specifically to shed light on the individual effects of the major CSR sub-category that is corporate donations. Using a sample of listed sin stocks from the North American and European markets, from the period 2009 to 2018, this study sets out to tests two main hypotheses: (1) Corporate donations are negatively related to abnormal returns in sin stocks, and (2) corporate donations decrease idiosyncratic risk in sin stocks. In line with our prediction, we find a clear negative relationship between donations and idiosyncratic risk in sin stocks, indicating that sin firm donations do in fact mitigate risk. We find no significant effects on abnormal returns from donations. The results imply that stakeholder perceptions of overall CSR performance differ from that of certain sub-activities in sin stocks, and thus future research could benefit from focusing on the effects of individual sub-activities rather than the effects of CSR performance as a composite. Further, the results imply that in order for donations to be value maximizing, they should be well grounded in- and aligned with stakeholder demands.