A rapid growth of Islamic finance in the past decades has motivated many investors to focus on Islamic stocks rather than conventional stocks. The argument whether the performance of Shariah compliant stocks are better compared to the conventional stocks still remains an open question. Therefore, this research examines whether there are differences in performance between the Shariah compliant stocks and the conventional stocks listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) for the period 2001-2013. Our findings show that there is a statistically significant difference in performance of the Islamic and conventional stocks listed on the ASX in terms of risk, otherwise the performance of the Islamic stocks tends to be similar to the conventional stocks. In addition, we report a statistically significant relationship between the returns of Shariah compliant and conventional stocks.

This study investigates whether the large payouts that are available to Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) from a change in corporate control (takeover) do motivate some CEOs to seek acquisition of their firms by making them more attractive to a takeover bid. Using Australian and the US data, employing OLS regression, we report that there is a significant relationship between a CEOs change in control payments and their firm's net cash levels (one of the key factors of takeover attractiveness). Our empirical results also indicate that CEOs desire their firms to be acquired by decreasing shareholders' equity, thus supporting the view that change in control payments exist primarily for incumbent managers. Our findings provide support to the proposition that managers enjoy having large cash balances to be available to them as it allows them with greater opportunities to derive personal benefit from Asian Journal of Finance & Accounting ISSN 1946-052X 2012 www.macrothink.org/ajfa 108 it. Therefore, our findings suggest that managers prefer to have large cash balances available to them to ensure their future wellbeing by setting up favourable terms in the control agreements.