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Buy-sell arrangements for the death of a co-owner may be funded with life insurance. Although many factors may enter the decision of whether to fund the buy-sell with life insurance, the degree of tolerance to risk is a major factor. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the risk aversion necessary to make life insurance funding the preferred option.

The decision whether to use life insurance was modeled using the expected utility theorem under state-dependent utility. Aversion to risk was varied to determine at what risk aversion levels insurance was preferred. Analysis was done for difference ages and thus mortality risk and for difference levels of insurance markups.

Life insurance funding is preferred at relatively low amounts of risk aversion, especially if the surviving partner becomes more risk averse upon the co-owner's death. A lower percentage of life insurance would be used if insurance premiums are significantly above actuarially fair premiums.

Given currently available insurance rates, most closely held small businesses probably should fund their buy-sell arrangements activated upon death of a partner with life insurance. However, cash flow constraints may hinder insurance purchase and planning may be myopic in that more imminent strategy issues may be present that a future death.

Although the use of life insurance to fund buy-sell arrangements is typically suggested for the small closely held business, little economic or financial analysis has been completed to date.

Although the focus of this issue is on investment in British industry and hence we are particularly concerned with debt and shares, the transactions and holdings in these cannot be separated from the range of other financial claims, including property, that are available to investors. In consequence this article focuses on an overview of the financial system including in Section 2 a presentation of the flow of funds matrix of the financial claims that make up the system. We also examine more closely the role of the financial institutions that are part of the system by utilising the sources and uses statements for three sectors, non‐bank financial institutions, personal sector and industrial and commercial companies. Then we provide, in Section 3, a discussion of the various financial claims investors can hold. In Section 4 we give a portrayal of the portfolio disposition of each of the major types of financial institution involved in the market for company securities specifically insurance companies (life and general), pension funds, unit and investment trusts, and in Section 4 a market study is performed for ordinary shares, debentures and preference shares for holdings, net acquisitions and purchases/sales. A review of some of the empirical evidence on the financial institutions is presented in Section 5 and Section 6 is by way of a conclusion. The data series extend in the main from 1966 to 1981, though at the time of writing, some 1981 data are still unavailable. In addition, the point needs to be made that the samples have been constantly revised so that care needs to be exercised in the use of the data.

This paper aims to determine the extent to which graduate student funding portfolios vary across and within engineering, life sciences and physical sciences academic fields for degree recipients. “Graduate student funding portfolios” refers to the percentages of students funded by fellowships, research assistantships, teaching assistantships, personal means and other sources within an organizational unit.

Using data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates data set, the authors analyze doctoral students’ self-reported primary mechanisms of funding across and within academic fields varying along the Biglan taxonomy. The authors used cluster analyses and logistic regression to investigate within-field variation in funding portfolios.

The authors show significant differences in doctoral student funding portfolios across dimensions of the Biglan taxonomy characterizing academic fields. Within those fields, the authors demonstrate considerable variation in funding; institutions cluster into different “modes” of funding portfolios that do not necessarily map onto institutional type or control variables.

Despite tremendous investment in graduate students, there has been little research that can help characterize at the program-level how graduate students are funded, either by internal or external mechanisms. As programs continue to feel the pressures of more limited resources coupled with increasing graduate enrollment demands, investigating graduate student funding at a macro level is becoming increasingly important so programs may better understand constraints and predict shifts in resource availability.

This study provides an extensive risk assessment framework for nonlisted real estate funds' (NREFs) portfolio management in India across their life cycle; that is, the investment stage, the monitoring stage and the exit stage in an emerging market context. The study of risk across these three stages is a new addition to the literature and assumes importance in the context of real estate portfolio management for NREFs in the emerging markets (e.g. India), which are predominantly an opportunistic investment play.

The risk assessment framework is built on the multiactor/multicriteria risk priorities, using analytical hierarchy process (AHP), obtained from 35 experts in four real estate fund management professional groups; namely, investors/fund managers, valuers, consultants and international developers.

The results demonstrate that the real estate portfolio management risk priorities change across the three life cycle stages of the fund. At the investment stage, specific risks are most critical; at the monitoring stage, it is important to concentrate on all three risks – specific, systematic and management risks; and at the exit stage, systematic risk plays a crucial role. Real estate portfolio management risk evaluation at the subfactor level shows that investee/partner and location selection needs to be critically evaluated at the time of the investment; project execution and quality of development must be monitored during the construction/monitoring period; and repatriation of the funds, currency volatility and exit risk (resale) are critical at the exit stage of the fund.

The understanding of the real estate portfolio management risk transformation across the life cycle stages is crucial for NREF managers for risk minimization, transfer and mitigation strategy formulation in their real estate portfolios. Unlike previous research that evaluates investment risk, this study breaks the NREF's risks into the investment, monitoring and exit stages. The key risk factors for each stage depend on the NREF's real estate activities for that stage. These activities, in turn, give rise to a typical risk profile for that stage. The findings are crucial for the various stakeholders of real estate fund management and policymakers in an emerging market context; particularly India, one of the fastest growing major economies in the world.

This risk assessment framework for simultaneously assessing risk across the three life cycle stages of NREFs is a new addition to the literature.

The study examines Asia Pacific (APAC) non-listed non-core real estate funds' capital calls (investor equity drawdowns) sequence for varying vehicle strategies.

Analysis starts with a cursory data interpretation that extracts a typical investors' equity drawdowns schedule. Thousands of simulations are then computed for each vehicle strategy for each year to further interpretation.

Data and methodological limitations notwithstanding, overall estimates suggest that funds exhibit a contrasting capital calls sequence. As a group, APAC non-core non-listed real estate funds call circa 76.3% of investors' committed capital during the first four years of the fund life. Single sector, single country and value added vehicles have a greater capital calls velocity compared to their multi sector, multi country and opportunity peers. However, the two fund groups exhibit a notable standard deviation heterogeneity of drawdowns.

Investors should therefore budget accordingly when choosing either of vehicle strategies to invest in.

The study adds additional evidence on the topic of capital calls velocity. Results should assist LPs with their non-listed APAC real estate funds investment programme further.

The objective of this study was to identify the impact of a perceived inadequacy of authoritative South African financial reporting guidance for long‐term insurers, on the basic financial statement characteristic of comparability. The authors attempted to identify areas of non‐comparable presentation and disclosure and to suggest relevant guidance. To assess comparability, the financial statements of five insurers were evaluated using a checklist specifically developed for this study. This process identified seven main categories of significant non‐comparable presentation and disclosure practices. Solutions were proposed for these areas, based inter alia on existing international literature and guidance.

This paper aims to explore the challenges the Venture Capital (VC) funds industry in New Zealand (NZ) faces when sourcing new capital. In NZ, there is a significant gap currently for companies seeking VC funding of between $2 and $10 million to commercialise new products and ideas. Also, the estimated financing needs of the next generation of early stage NZ enterprises are around $2 billion of investment over the next 10 years (NZVIF, 2011).

A qualitative research design is applied, given the exploratory nature of this research. In this study, 15 face-to-face semi-structured interviews with VC fund managers, investors and intermediaries were undertaken.

The findings suggest that the lack of observable proven historical returns from NZ domiciled VC funds is a significant impediment to raising new equity capital. Fund managers and intermediaries also note that there is a lack of domestic entities in NZ that have the capacity and current appetite to invest in VC. In part, this may indicate that VC investors are unwilling to invest further capital in NZ VC funds until the current funds realise their existing investments.

Overall our findings support recent initiatives by the NZ VC funds industry to track and monitor the performance of NZ VC funds.

Discusses the context for French property investment. Shows how it has evolved as a result of social, economic and political forces. Considers investment media, investment methods and types of investors. Finally examines in depth the phenomenon of ‘mondialisation′ – the increasingly international nature of property investment.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel theory of the equilibrium liquidity premia of private equity funds and explore its asset-pricing implications.

The theory assumes that investors are exposed to the risk of facing surprise liquidity shocks, which upon arrival force them to liquidate their positions on the secondary private equity markets at some stochastic discount to the fund’s current net asset value. Assuming a competitive market where fund managers capture all rents from managing the funds and investors just break even on their positions, liquidity premia are defined as the risk-adjusted excess returns that fund managers must generate to compensate investors for the costs of illiquidity. The model is calibrated to data of buyout funds and is illustrated by using numerical simulations.

The model analysis generates a rich set of novel implications. These concern how fund characteristics affect liquidity premia, the role of the investors’ propensities of liquidity shocks in determining liquidity premia and the impact of market conditions and cycles on liquidity premia.

This is the first paper that derives liquidity premia of private equity funds in an equilibrium setting in which investors are exposed to the risk of facing surprise liquidity shocks.