Question: 1. (a) Analyse how signalling models attempt to explain the proportion of equity retained by an entrepreneur, the size of the dividend declared, the type of financing used for an investment and the amount of equity issued or repurchased. To what extent are these applications of signalling theory in corporate finance supported by empirical evidence? (weight 40%) (b) Choose ONE company that went to public on any major stock exchange during the past ten years and with information from publicly available sources and your own data analysis perform the following tasks: Assume that you were working for an investment company at the time of the IPO (i) Would you have recommended your company to buy or not to buy shares in the issue? Give your reasons. Use only data and information available before the listing. (ii) Assume that your firm bought 100,000 shares on the market within the first week trading of trading and held the shares for three years. Is there a difference in the investment return to your firm compared with another investment firm that ought the same number of shares at the offer price? Analyse the reasons that account for any differences in investment returns (30%) (c) Analyse the ownership structure and control of large companies in the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan and critically evaluate their associated governance systems and structures. Do the differences in ownership structure and control matter economically? Discuss. (30%) Deadline: before 11AM, Friday 15/8/2008 Guaranteed 2:1 Standard The length of the assessment should not exceed 6000 words, excluding appendices and references. The essay should be word-processed with 1.5 spacing. I attach a file of lecturer''s Assignment Guide for this question and I have had journals that lecturer requires in that Guide already, if you need them, I will send you later. you should choose any good and famous IPO company without lecturer''s approval because now he have holiday so I can not ask him about his approval of company you choose. The text book that lecture recommended is Financial Theory and Corporate Policy, 4th edition, 2005, Cope Thomas, Weston and Shastri. Addison Wesley (chapter 12 for question 1a) *View Attachments*