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During the last decade, following the development of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) in the USA, associated risk and risk‐adjusted measures have been developed to assess the risk and performance of portfolios and ‘mutual funds’ (unit trusts). This work has been further continued in the USA in the form of regular risk services relating to individual securities; for example, the Merrill Lynch ‘Beta Book’, which during the last year has also included beta measures for the more widely held mutual funds, and the Barr Rosenburg Associates ‘Fundamental Risk Measurement Service’. Additionally in the USA, a number of organisations have developed special risk‐measurement services relating to mutual funds alone.

This paper is concerned with the marketing of packaged retail financial products in the UK, viewed as part of a general regulatory mechanism applied to all investment business services. It considers the general principles which lie behind regulation as well as the particular provisions made in the Financial Services Act 1987. We discuss the problems associated with the operation of this structure of regulation and the reasons for concern which resulted in the Clucas Report (1992) and the subsequent revisions of the regulatory structure which saw the introduction of the Personal Investment Authority in July 1993. In the light of these findings it is difficult to believe that this will be the last of the changes.

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.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of financial market rules in protecting minorities.

The study compares two alternative disclosure rules on insider trading, namely, the market abuse directive (Directive 2004/72/EC), inspired from the United State (US) insider trading regulation enacted by the Sarbanes–Oxley act and the transparency directive enacted by the European (Directive 2004/109/EC) dealing with the crossing of the shareholding threshold. To investigate which one is more effective in signaling reserved information, and thus in reducing information asymmetry, the authors run an event study on the French context, where both regulations are adopted. The data were hand collected from the French stock exchange securities commissions during the two years following the implementation of the two regulations in 2004. The final sample consists of 363 insiders trading and 35 crossing shareholding thresholds for 10 top French firms during the period 2006-2007.

The results show that the French market reacts significantly to insider trading, but poorly to the crossing shareholding thresholds. Abnormal returns are greater after insider purchases than after crossing up thresholds. These findings support the superiority of the insider disclosure regulation, as it has better information content and provides better protection to minorities.

The study contributes to the corporate governance literature by comparing two disclosure-trading policies. The authors conclude that regulation of disclosure of insider trading along the lines of US disclosure rules is more informative to the market and thus more relevant and important than disclosure of cross-threshold trades.

The study contributes to the corporate governance literature by comparing two disclosure-trading policies. The authors conclude that regulation of disclosure of insider trading along the lines of US disclosure rules is more informative to the market and thus more relevant and important than disclosure of cross-threshold trades. This finding can be helpful for the securities lawmakers and regulators in the process of insider trading law enforcement.

Previous researchers approached the question of insider trading focusing on the identity of insiders. In the research, the authors address the question from another perspective, namely, the crossing of thresholds. Another methodological contribution of the study is the use of a market model that incorporates GARCH (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic) effect and time-varying systematic risk parameter (β), which is recommended to tackle the classical event study problem of detecting the exact timing of the event.

To attract funding from ethical investment trusts, it is expected that investee companies will need to undertake corporate social disclosure (CSD) in annual reports. This paper first explores the notion that companies included within the portfolio of ethical investment trusts (ETIs), are likely to provide a greater quantity of CSD than companies in which ethical trusts have not invested (NETIs). Second, the paper examines the characteristics of companies that undertake CSD, and their relationship to the ETI/NETI classification. Results from the examination of a sample of 300 Australian annual reports for 147 companies over a five‐year period (1990–1994), indicate that CSD is related to size, industry visibility, and company presence in both foreign countries and foreign stock exchanges. The significance of this paper, in addition to building upon empirical research into CSD, is that, in a range of circumstances, companies with an ethical investor as a shareholder, provide greater transparency about their social and environmental activities, than companies without an ethical investor. As a result, case can be made for the direct regulation and monitoring of ETI companies to be reduced, relative to NETIs, given that ethical investment may fulfil a market based regulatory function.

Socially responsible investment (SRI): selection of investment portfolios with regard to ethical and social criteria in addition to conventional financial considerations, is often considered to bring reduced financial performance, although empirical evidence is inconclusive. Five possible sources of divergence in the performance of socially responsible and conventional investments have been proposed in the literature, and are further examined here. Two proposed mechanisms (the ‘anticipation effect’ and the ‘positive selection effect’) describe firms in which investment is potentially made. Since such opportunities are available to all investors, these are unlikely sources of systematic divergence. Concern (the ‘diversification effect’) that SRI constraints prevent adequate portfolio diversification is shown to be ill founded. The greater proportion of smaller companies in SRI portfolios links to an ongoing debate regarding the ‘small companies effect’, in which smaller companies have at times appeared to have superior (and more recently, inferior) performance, while other studies suggest that this is merely an artefact of the methodology used. It is argued that none of the above provides a basis for expectations of inferior SRI performance. Furthermore, SRI portfolio managers gather additional company information and also increasingly engage in dialogue with companies. It is argued that this ‘information effect’ is a possible source of superior SRI performance.

Ethical investment funds are retail financial products which explicitly add social or ethical goals or constraints to normal financial criteria in selecting their underlying share portfolio. By means of a case study of a UK fund, this paper explores how the relationship between ethical criteria and financial performance might be handled, which is one of the critical issues that arise in putting ethical investment into practice. The research confirms perceptions of a tension between the implementation of an ethical policy and the achievement of good financial performance, and it identifies some of the ways which fund managers might seek to cope with that tension. However, by studying the financial management of an ethical fund in practice, the paper also reveals the ways in which there might be a positive correlation between the financial performance and the ethical effectiveness of a fund, thus providing a complementary perspective to the earlier empirical studies and discussions which have focused on the possibility of ethical concerns undermining financial success.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Shariah guidelines on the performance of the Dow Jones Islamic Index (DJIM-US). Shariah or Islamic law is a set of rules that determines Islamic allowed activities including socially and ethically acceptable investments.

The authors apply four risk-adjusted methodologies and co-integration analysis to investigate whether limited asset universe Shariah investments limit investment opportunities and impose an opportunity cost on investors given the prediction of conventional portfolio theories.

In contrast to the prediction of conventional portfolio theories, the findings suggest no apparent opportunity cost for Shariah compatible investments. In particular, Dow Jones Islamic Mutual Funds do not under-perform the broader market US benchmarks nor do they have any co-integration with the broader indexes. Moreover, the authors find similar evidence in the studies of Islamic mutual funds in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Kuwait.

The findings will be reinforced when the authors will look into long run performance of Shariah compliant funds in future. Using non-linear approach will add further clarity to the findings.

The results provide an insight suggesting that successful mutual fund managers are able to overcome Shariah restrictions and constraints through creative investment strategies. In the data set, the Amana Trust Growth fund and the Amana Trust Income fund were always the best performers with a highly significant abnormal return, no matter what the methodology was.

The performance of Islamic funds during the approximately seven-year period covered by the study is very promising. Popularity of Islamic Investment is expected to grow as Muslim population represents about 25 percent of the world population and the possibility for the Muslim funds to be considered as viable alternative by non-Shariah abiding or non-Muslim investors. The empirical results in the paper provide evidence that lack in diversification did not constrain the performance of Islamic funds.

This paper applied comprehensive risk-adjusted methodologies and co-integration analysis to Islamic Funds for a seven-year period for multiple countries. The findings confirm previously obtained results and highlight the fact that constrained Islamic Funds may not under-perform as per conventional portfolio theories.

There is a great deal of research that has been done to investigate the investment characteristics of conventional socially responsible investment portfolios compared to their broader conventional counterparts. However, the impact of incorporating sustainability criteria into the traditional Sharia screening process has not so far been investigated. Therefore, the study aims to give empirical evidence as to whether or not incorporating sustainability socially responsible criteria in the traditional Sharia screening process has a significant impact on the investment characteristics of the Islamic investment portfolio.

The paper examines the investment characteristics of four groups of investment portfolios mainly, Dow Jones Global Index, Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index and Dow Jones Islamic Market Sustainability Index. To improve the robustness of the study, the analysis was carried out at different levels. First, absolute mean return and t‐test were used to examine whether the difference between the different groups of investments is statistically significant or not. Second, risk adjusted equilibrium models, both single‐index and Fama and French multi‐index, were employed. This is to control for different risk exposure and investment style bias associated with different investment portfolios examined.

The paper finds that neither the Sharia nor the sustainability screening process seems to have an adverse impact on the performance and systematic risk of the investment portfolios compared to their unrestricted conventional counterparts. Therefore, Muslim as well as socially responsible investors can choose investments that are consistent with their value systems and beliefs without being forced to sacrifice performance or expose to higher systematic risk.

The study contributes to the existing literature by giving new evidence on the impact of incorporating sustainability criteria into the traditional Sharia screening process that has not so far been investigated.

This paper aims to provide evidence to suggest that private social and environmental reporting (i.e. one-on-one meetings between institutional investors and investees on social and environmental issues) is beginning to merge with private financial reporting and that, as a result, integrated private reporting is emerging.

In this paper, 19 FTSE100 companies and 20 UK institutional investors were interviewed to discover trends in private integrated reporting and to gauge whether private reporting is genuinely becoming integrated. The emergence of integrated private reporting through the lens of institutional logics was interpreted. The emergence of integrated private reporting as a merging of two hitherto separate and possibly rival institutional logics was framed.

It was found that specialist socially responsible investment managers are starting to attend private financial reporting meetings, while mainstream fund managers are starting to attend private meetings on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. Further, senior company directors are becoming increasingly conversant with ESG issues.

The findings were interpreted as two possible scenarios: there is a genuine hybridisation occurring in the UK institutional investment such that integrated private reporting is emerging or the financial logic is absorbing and effectively neutralising the responsible investment logic.

These findings provide evidence of emergent integrated private reporting which are useful to both the corporate and institutional investment communities as they plan their engagement meetings.

No study has hitherto examined private social and environmental reporting through interview research from the perspective of emergent integrated private reporting. This is the first paper to discuss integrated reporting in the private reporting context.