Kapitalkostnad på fastighetsmarknaden

Sammanfattning: The aim with this thesis is to evaluate how financial instruments, mainly preferred shares and bonds, affect the cost of capital in publicly traded real estate companies. We also want to investigate how the companies motivate their financial strategies of choice. With knowledge of the capital structures we make connections to the development of financial risk in the companies related to the financial instruments and leverage. The motives to financial strategies may be connected to EU-regulations in some extent. Therefore, we choose to examine the EU-regulations affecting the financial markets. The foundation of the thesis is Miller & Modigliani theory concerning the cost of capital. Also, the different kind of ownerships in the companies of choice will be examined. The thesis is based on data-collection from the annual reports of the chosen companies and 9 semi-structured interviews with representatives from the companies and the real estate sector in Sweden. We conclude that there is a possibility for the companies to affect their cost of capital in both positive and negative ways using different kinds of financial instruments. The risks are trending towards lower levels in all assessed companies and they are working with their balance sheets to improve the financial stability in different ways.