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The International Valuations Standards Committee adopts the Capital Asset Pricing Model as a method for estimation of the cost of equity. It has several drawbacks and appraisers in emerging markets need more useful model for cost of equity estimation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The proposed model is a modification of the Salomon Smith Barney model for cost of capital determination. The econometric part of the model incorporates the non-synchronous effect, the thin trading effect, the time varying risk nature, and the systematic country risk.

The model estimates the cost of equity of Bulgarian REITs more accurate than the one, who uses the traditional β estimation.

The study provides appraisers, business consultants, and investment bankers with a consistent model for cost of equity estimation. The model incorporates most of the features of emerging markets REITs return series and avoids the weaknesses of the single-factor model for cost of equity estimation in emerging markets.

The proposed model reflects the following characteristics: the degree of diversification of the particular investor (imperfectly diversified); country risk; and time-varying risk nature. The political risk is incorporated by more objective measure of the systematic country risk.

Brand portfolio management is not just a marketing issue, in which a sub‐optimal portfolio dilutes marketing messages and confuses customers. It also directly affects corporate profitability. Ill‐defined and overlapping brands in a portfolio lead to erosion in price premiums, weaker manufacturing economies, and sub‐scale distribution. In a slower economy, the problems of an under performing portfolio are even more acute: While adding brands is easy, it becomes difficult to harvest the value in a brand or to divest it. Effective brand portfolio management starts by creating a fact base about the equity in each brand and the brand’s economic contribution. The application of analytical tools can inform decisions about individual and collective brand strategies from targeting and positioning to investments, partnerships, and extension opportunities. Linking the intangibles of brands to hard financial metrics allows companies to exploit the full potential of their brands and thereby gain a competitive advantage.

This paper aims to examine how international banking groups manage their branding in the context of successive mergers and acquisitions. It seeks to review of a number of case histories in order to show that banking companies tend to evolve a multi‐tiered system for absorbing and rebranding acquisitions and it also seeks to present a general framework to guide future research and practice.

The banking industry has been undergoing major consolidation in recent years, with a number of global players emerging through successive mergers and acquisitions. These transactions vary in scale and location, from major mergers of large, equal‐sized international entities to acquisitions of smaller, local businesses in various countries all around the world. This paper brings together the literature on mergers and acquisitions, which mostly comes from economics and finance, with the marketing literature on branding and rebranding, to create a framework to help us to understand the management challenge of rebranding bank brands in this context. Citigroup and Crédit Agricole are used as a preliminary test of this framework.

This analysis suggests that the branding problem varies according to the size and international status of the acquisitive bank. Very large banks with international brands such as Citigroup tend to follow a branded house strategy where they impose their master brand on all acquisitions resulting in a further enhancement of scale and brand strength. However, this general strategy conceals a more complex, multi‐tiered approach with different types and sizes of acquisitions being rebranded in different ways. Regional players such as Crédit Agricole tend to opt for a house of brands strategy where their acquired companies retain their own name and brand franchise in local markets.

The framework presented here is entirely new and requires further testing. The evidence supplied here is interesting but preliminary and requires further validation.

Most banking companies nowadays become involved in mergers and acquisitions at some stage, and face the task of realigning their brands in the aftermath of these transactions. This paper provides a systematic framework backed up by empirical evidence to help them to make these decisions.

The paper addresses a critically important strategic issue that has not been addressed in any detail in the marketing literature. The paper provides preliminary research evidence and a framework to suggest hypotheses for further research.

The capital asset pricing model, using as an approximation of the market portfolio the General Index of the Athens Stock Exchange, has been applied extensively to measure the risk of the bond mutual funds operating in the Greek financial market. This article argues that the General Index of the Athens Stock Exchange cannot approximate the market portfolio and proposes an alternative index. In turn, the proposed Bond Index is tested using the daily returns of the bond mutual funds operating in the Greek financial market. The proposed index proved to be a very good approximation of the Greek bond market. Besides, this index approximates the market portfolio much better than General Index of the Athens Stock Exchange.

One of the things I find most stimulating about customers is how readily they take things for granted. Overnight, today’s innovation becomes tomorrow’s routine ‐ something to be expected. This fact of human behavior is by far the best encouragement I know to pursue a strategy of continuous improvement in service to customers. For example, until recently it was rare for people serving you in a big shop to use your name. Now it is the failure to use your name that is more likely to be noticed. Using the customer’s name when he or she offers a credit or banker’s card has become part of the “given”. The service provider gets no competitive advantage in return for the effort involved.

The benefits of network relations for firms’ competitive advantage are increasingly acknowledged in the strategic management literature. Yet, the cost implications of engaging in network-specific relations, stemming from the irreversibility of sunk costs invested in creating network relations, are largely ignored. Such costs tend to be especially pronounced in high technology firms. It follows that the costs of creating network relations may mask the benefits of such relations, suggesting that networks can be a competitive risk for firms in cases where network relations unexpectedly terminate. This chapter adopts a cost-benefit approach to an empirical analysis showing that while in the long term, network relations enhance high technology firms’ performance, short-term efforts in creating network relations may hamper their performance. Furthermore, we show that greater technological intensity intensifies the negative performance implications of short term network participation and the positive performance implications of long term network participation.

The authors aim to develop and test a theory of dual responsibility to explain the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm performance. The authors empirically examine whether firms that meet their economic and social responsibilities simultaneously perform better than firms that fail to do so. In doing so, the authors theoretically extend and empirically test Barney's (2018) call to incorporate the stakeholder perspective with resource-based view (RBV). The authors also examine the moderating effects of firm status on this relationship.

The authors use a longitudinal panel sample of 137 S&P 500 firms and data for the years between 2004 and 2013 collected from multiple data sources. The authors use stochastic frontiers analysis to measure firm capabilities in the areas of R&D, operations and marketing. These capability measures are then used along with CSR measures and a measure of firm status to test the hypotheses of this study. The authors also conducted several robustness checks and various supplementary analyses using different econometrics techniques and different operationalizations of the key variables of interests.

The results show that firm CSR is positively related to firm performance and that the effect of CSR on performance is stronger for firms with higher levels of R&D capability and operational capability. The authors also find support for the three-way interaction between CSR, economic responsibility and firm status, suggesting that firms high in both social and economic responsibilities and status will enjoy the highest levels of performance.

The findings of this study are based on large, publicly listed firms in North America. Therefore, their generalizability to other contexts and other types of firms require additional research. The reliance on KLD measures is also a limitation, especially because they have not reported CSR ratings after 2013.

For practicing managers, the main implication of this study is that an optimal balance between market and nonmarket strategies is key for superior performance.

The continued debate regarding the firm's purpose can be understood by focusing equally on the two main responsibilities of firms: nonsocial responsibility and social responsibility toward all stakeholders.

The study answers the call to incorporate stakeholder theory into the RBV of the firm by highlighting the critical role of firm capabilities in the relationship between CSR and performance. The study also highlights the role that firm status plays in the relationship between market and nonmarket strategies and firm performance.

Argues that the Greek secondary bond market (opened in March 1999) needs a specific index to approximate its market portfolio for measuring systematic risk (beta) since the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) index may be misleading. Puts forward a weighted index and explains the five steps involved in its construction. Tests the index, using data fro the first six months of the bond market’s operation, finds it a good approximation; and shows that in conjunction with the ASE index it improves the explanatory power of the capital asset pricing model.

In the two years following the bursting of the high‐technology and telecommunications stock “bubble”, various legal proceedings and regulatory actions have brought Wall Street to the brink of creating a “independent” stock research arm that purportedly would create a separation between the research and investment banking functions of major Wall Street firms. This new research scenario is largely a result of the confluence of the legal and regulatory proceedings and a dramatic loss in confidence by public investors in the quality and objectivity in research provided by their brokerage firms. This article examines the legal, legislative, and regulatory proceedings that have led to this dramatic change in the way Wall Street will conduct stock research in the future.

We investigate global competitors’ reaction to the Citicorp–Travelers mega merger announcement and find that global competitors, especially banks in Europe and the US, reacted positively to the Citicorp and Travelers’ merger announcement. The uncertainties created by the investigations into the merger proposal had significant impact on the competitors’ stock price. The announcement that the merger had been consummated also elicited a significantly positive reaction from the rivals following the resolution of uncertainties emanating from the regulatory challenges. The positive reaction by competitors suggests that the merger was a wealth-creating event for the large firms in the financial services industry. The expected benefits outweighed any competitive effects resulting from the merger. The competitors’ reaction was, however, not homogenous. Our cross-sectional analysis shows that the abnormal returns earned by the competitors were higher the larger the competitor. In addition, the abnormal returns were greater for the US rivals. That the global competitors reacted positively to the Citicorp–Travelers mega merger announcement is consistent with our assertion that the merger had ramifications that go beyond regulatory concerns in the US.