SMEs play a crucial role for European economies. The numbers show the high importance of SMEs for national economies. Accordingly, it is no surprise that the regulatory framework SMEs are imbedded in is the subject of an important political discussion. In the discussion it is frequently...

Start-ups are a dominant factor for the economic development of a country. However, the foundation of a company is a complex procedure and many start-ups fail. External support is available from many sources as e.g. business angels, tax advisors, chambers of industry and commerce, banks and...

This paper investigates the managing strategies of a bank's liquidity reserve in the broader context of the role of asset-liability management according to the liquidity issues of a banking organisation. Several types of liquidity are presented and how these are interconnected and how they might...

The payoff of many credit derivatives depends on the level of credit spreads. In particular, the payoff of credit derivatives with a leverage component is sensitive to jumps in the underlying credit spreads. In the framework of first passage time models we extend the model introduced in...

The payoff of many credit derivatives depends on the level of credit spreads. In particular, credit derivatives with a leverage component are subject to gap risk, a risk associated with the occurrence of jumps in the underlying credit default swaps. In the framework of first passage time models,...

The dramatic drop in prices on the German stock exchange in the period from 2000 to 2003 was one cause for the rising number of delistings in Germany. This development triggered the study on the aptitude of listed companies to remain listed although the authors were well aware that a negative...

The year 2000 started the evolution of the German market for Structured Products with incorporated Hedge Fund exposures. This paper provides an extensive commentary on this fast growing segment. Our analysis suggests that the market for existing products is affected by significant heterogeneity....

Loss Given Default (LGD) is a major element for pricing credits and bonds. As there has been a substantial amount of research during the last years, this paper aims to give an overview. Initially, defaults and recovery definitions for credits and the differences to bonds are discussed. A survey...

The paper examines the key drivers of gold investment. Since 2000 the gold price has risen drastically, making gold an interesting add-on to a portfolio. As gold futures have negative roll returns, gold pool accounts are characterized by high credit risk and physical possession of gold means...

Most research on the performance and risk of hedge funds are based on calculations that just use the data from one index provider. Also most product providers and even more and more investors are using hedge fund indices for benchmarking purposes. As some academic articles pointed out, the world...