Rare international grant for NZ Finance research

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Rare international grant for New Zealand Finance research

An international research centre set up by investment company PricewaterhouseCoopers has made a rare grant to support research by two Massey University academics.

It is the first grant the cantre has made to researchers in New Zealand.

Dr Ben Marshall and Dr Hamish Anderson, from the University’s Finance, Property and Banking department, have received funding from the international company’s Global Competency Centre, which fosters research that will be of interest to both academics and practitioners throughout the world.

The grant of 4,000 Euros (around $8000 New Zealand dollars) will help fund a research project titled What is the Relationship Between Investor Protection and Takeover Returns? Evidence from Europe. The project also involves Massey graduate Ryan Wales, now with Auckland investment bankers Giffney and Jones, and is partly based on preliminary analysis in his Masters thesis, under the supervision of Dr Anderson and Dr Marshall.

The Global Competency Centre was established in 2002 and makes only one or two grants a year. Its award panel includes some of the world’s leading business academics.

Dr Anderson and Dr Marshall say the fact that their research will have validity application for practitioners as well as other academics would have had appeal for PricewaterhouseCoopers. They have chosen an area that is so far under researched internationally: “There is a growing amount of research on the relationship between regulation and securities markets but very little related to mergers and acquisitions. We have set out to help fill that gap,” they say.

They note that increasingly, mergers and acquisitions involve more than one country and, as a result, the issue of different types of regulation and investor protection across countries has become more important. For example, The Economist recently reported that the European Union is harmonizing investor protection laws across its member countries.

The research was started in June this year and is due to be finished by January next year.

Ben Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in Finance who has presented his research at leading international finance conferences and had his work published in high ranked journals.

Hamish Anderson is a qualified chartered accountant. He completed a PhD in finance in 2004 and has published in both academic and practitioner finance and accounting journals.

ENDS

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