Does IPO Pricing Reflect Public Information? New Insights from Equity Carve‐Outs

We examine the efficiency of initial public offering (IPO) pricing using a sample of over 300 equity carve‐outs from 1985 to 2009. The partial adjustment theory posits that the initial return of IPOs is predictable based on private information, but public information is fully incorporated. Prospect theory is consistent with both private and public information not being fully incorporated in the offer price. Our analysis confirms that both price update and initial return of carve‐out IPOs can be predicted based on the parent firm's returns during the prepricing and preissuing periods. Further, postissue ownership of the parent firm is associated with significantly higher price update and initial return, while IPOs where the majority of the proceeds are paid out register lower initial return. The size of the subsidiary and relative size of the offering are also significantly related to price update and initial return. These findings are consistent with prospect theory.     

IPSAS or IFRS as the Framework for Public Sector Financial Reporting? New Zealand Preparers’ Perspectives

The last 30 years have seen public sector accounting in many countries undergo considerable change. More recently, some governments adopted accrual accounting and International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), some adopted modified International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) while others continued with cash‐based accounting. New Zealand (NZ) has, for more than two decades, followed a sector neutral approach to financial reporting and standard setting where the same accounting standards were applied to all entities in all sectors: for‐profit, not‐for‐profit and the public sector. This period included the adoption of IFRS by for‐profit entities with minor modifications for the public sector. The suitability of IFRS for the public sector has been questioned and, recently, standard setters in NZ decided to adopt a sector‐specific standard‐setting approach with multiple tiers for each sector. The for‐profit sector will continue to follow IFRS but reporting standards for the public sector will be based on IPSAS. In this period of change we sought the views of preparers of public sector financial reports regarding the users of such reports and their preferences for the public sector reporting framework. We also sought the views of the preparers regarding the usefulness of each financial statement for users, and whether the benefits of reporting by their organisations exceeds the costs. The findings indicate support for maintaining IFRS as a basis for reporting in the NZ public sector. However, IPSAS modified to NZ conditions is also perceived as an acceptable option by respondents in this study. The income statement is, in the opinion of the respondents in this study, the most useful statement while cash flows appear to hold little value. A high proportion of respondents believe that the benefits of reporting exceed the costs, which contradicts the view that such reports are mainly compliance documents that provide little value. This finding contributes to the continuing debate on costs versus benefits on the recent introduction of IPSAS as the reporting framework for the public sector and the perceived appropriateness of IPSAS in public sector reporting.     

The Private Finance Initiative in the National Health Service: An Unhealthy Development in New Public Management?

New Public Management has expanded the role of the private sector in the provision of public services through 'contracting out' the supply of many public service inputs to the private sector. This paper examines the case of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which is of increasing importance in extending these inputs to include those of major capital assets, such as hospital buildings. Concerns arise as to whether this process does genuinely increase efficiency and accountability, and over the role of accounting in meeting the new demands being placed upon it, in the context of one of the most sensitive public services, that of health care.     

Eclipse of the Public Corporation or Eclipse of the Public Markets?

The authors look back at Michael Jensen's 1989 article “The Eclipse of the Public Corporation.” They find some of his predictions have been borne out but other important ones, not. Jensen concluded that the publicly held corporation was in decline and had outlived its usefulness in many sectors. He argued that agency costs made public corporations an inefficient form of organization and that new private organizational forms promoted by private equity firms would likely replace the public firm. The number of public firms in the U.S. has declined significantly but there are still many hugely profitable and successful public companies. U.S. public markets are still well‐suited for firms with mostly tangible assets. So, what we are really witnessing is an eclipse not of public corporations, but of the public markets as the place where young firms with mostly intangible capital seek their funding. This is especially true when the usefulness of the intangible assets has yet to be proven. Sometimes the market is extremely optimistic about some intangible assets, but otherwise firms with unproven intangible assets may be better off funding themselves privately. This evolution has a downside: investors limited to public markets are cut off from investing in high intangible‐asset firms. Additionally, as fewer firms remain publicly listed, fewer firms will be transparent to society.     

Pure Public Welfare Social Undertaking

The undertaking, which the government, in order to realize the whole social members' basic social rights and meet their basic social demand, provides the whole nationals with basic public products and service according to law and regulations, the government must ensure to invest it increasingly, not to seek for any operational benefit, and increase its level and quality continuously.     

New Horizon

Sichuan Meifeng Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., ZOOMLION Heavy Industry ＆ Science, Cathay Industrial Biotech Ltd., Goldwind Science and Technology Co., Ltd., KingsoftCorporation Limited, Shineway Group, SinoCells BioTechnologies Co., Ltd, Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited., Jiangsu Yanshen Biological Technology Stock Co., Ltd., Tianhe Titanium Industry Co., Ltd., etc., the majority of them have became the representative of Chinese excellent enterprises, no matter from the aspect of outstanding achievement, industrial leadership, management level, or development potential.     

Intime Goes Public on Hong Kong

Intime Department Store （Group） listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange since Mar. 20th. Intime offered 450 million shares at the price of HK$ 5.39, and raised HK$ 2.43 billion or $310 million. According to Intime＇s saying, 40% of funding will be used to expand its operation and stores.     

Private Opportunity,Public Benefit?

The newly elected Labour government has pledged to ‘reinvigorate the Private Finance Initiative’, as part of the new emphasis on ‘public/private partnerships’ in the delivery of core public services. This article assesses the merits of using private finance to deliver public services against three criteria: whether it will lead to additional investment in social infrastructure, whether it represents good value for the taxpayer's money and whether the use of private finance will reduce the public sector's flexibility to pursue its public service objectives. JEL classification: H54, H11.     

Does Going Public Affect Innovation?

This paper investigates the effects of going public on innovation by comparing the innovation activity of firms that go public with firms that withdraw their initial public offering (IPO) filing and remain private. NASDAQ fluctuations during the book‐building phase are used as an instrument for IPO completion. Using patent‐based metrics, I find that the quality of internal innovation declines following the IPO, and firms experience both an exodus of skilled inventors and a decline in the productivity of the remaining inventors. However, public firms attract new human capital and acquire external innovation. The analysis reveals that going public changes firms' strategies in pursuing innovation.     

Public management: A third approach?

The idea that management in the public sector has everything to learn from the private sector has been dominant in the 1980s. There is, however, scope for mutual learning across the sectoral divide if the primary concern of managers ‐whether in business or government — is to be effectiveness.     

Why Do European Firms Go Public?

We survey chief financial officers (CFOs) from 12 European countries regarding the determinants of going public and exchange listing decisions. Most CFOs identify enhanced visibility and financing for growth as the most important benefits of an IPO, but other motivations for IPOs differ significantly across firms, countries, and legal systems. We find strong support for the IPO theories that emphasise financial and strategic considerations, such as enhanced reputation and credibility, and financial flexibility as a major advantage of an IPO. At the same time, we find moderate support for theories that focus on exit strategy, balance of power with creditors, external monitoring, and merger and acquisition motivations. European CFOs' views on the major benefits of an IPO are generally similar to those of US managers as reported in Brau and Fawcett (2006) , but differ significantly on outside monitoring; outside monitoring is considered a major benefit by European CFOs but a major cost by US CFOs. Our evidence suggests that the decision to go public is a complex one, and cannot be explained by one single theory because firms seek multiple benefits in going public. These motivations are influenced by the firm's ownership structure, size and age as well as by the home country's institutional and regulatory environment.     

Money Creation: Tax or Public Liquidity?

I revisit the example of non‐neutral anticipated monetary expansions used in Lucas (1995) Nobel Prize Lecture, within a broader definition of monetary policy tools, such as paying a nominal return on money or using open market operations, to show that money expansions increase output by reallocating consumption across heterogenous individuals and time periods. This result survives with noninterest‐bearing cash when the latter does not generate relevant distortions.     

Are Accruals during Initial Public Offerings Opportunistic?

We find evidence that initial public offering (IPO) firms, on average, have high positive issue-year earnings and abnormal accruals, followed by poor long-run earnings and negative abnormal accruals. The IPO-year abnormal, and not expected, accruals explain the cross-sectional variation in post-issue earnings and stock returns. The results are robust with respect to alternative abnormal accruals and earnings performance measures. IPO firms adopt more income-increasing depreciation policies when they deviate from similar prior performance same industry non-issuers, and they provide significantly less for uncollectible accounts receivable than their matched non-issuers. The results taken together suggest opportunistic earnings management partially explains the new issues anomaly.     

Public Auction for 5 Secondary Vocational in Beijing

Beijing Medical Devices School locates at No. 6, Bei Yuan Road, An Ding Men Wan, Chao Yang District, east from Yang Fang Dong Lu, west to Beijing Municipal Research Center for Animals, north from Xi Po Zi Bei lu, south to Xi Bo Zi Lu. Occupation of land 2.33 hectares,     

Government Faces New Challenge

The second quarter data of venture investments in China can only lead someone to conclude, ＂This Pig is pretty.＂ The first full quarter in the Year of the Golden Pig has clearly shown that the venture ind.ustry will not be deterred from continuing to invest in the right opportunities across China.[第一段]     

New Attractive Business Model

Online 3D, item-based game development and operation is an attractive business model with the potential to produce outsized returns on invested capital and operating margins of at least 40%-45%.[第一段]     

A New Catering Space

The business which could let every Chinese spend one RMB on must be a big deal, the catering industry must be one of this kind of deals. As a freshman in the catertag industry, the interact catering booking is getting more and more attentions from VCs, such as dianping.com, 57575777.com, ziye114.corn, qingke800.com, and so on. According to the reporter＇s research, this kind of websites＇ characteristic and aim are getting commission from the restaurant by booking food or dinner for customer, or give customer discounts through the website.     

Why Do Companies Go Public? An Empirical Analysis

Using a large database of private firms in Italy, we analyze the determinants of initial public offerings (IPOs) by comparing the ex ante and ex post characteristics of IPOs with those of private firms. The likelihood of an IPO is increasing in the company's size and the industry's market-to-book ratio. Companies appear to go public not to finance future investments and growth, but to rebalance their accounts after high investment and growth. IPOs are also followed by lower cost of credit and increased turnover in control.     

What's New in Finance?

This paper prepares a list of the 300 most cited articles published in the area of Finance during the period 2000–2006. The articles are ranked based on the ratio of the number of citations and the number of years since publication, as of August 2007. Citation data come from Google Scholar and cover all articles in 29 Finance journals and Finance articles in 21 Economics, six Accounting, and two Operations research journals. The paper also reports the number of highly cited articles by number of authors, journal, research area, and institution.     

New project? Don't analyze--act

In a predictable world, getting a new initiative off the ground typically involves analyzing the market, creating a forecast, and writing a business plan. But what about in an unpredictable environment? The authors recommend looking to those who are experts in navigating extreme uncertainty while minimizing risk: serial entrepreneurs. These business leaders act, learn, and build their way into the future. Managers in traditional organizations can do the same, starting with smart, low-risk steps that follow simple rules: Use the means at hand; stay within an acceptable loss; secure only the commitment needed for the next step; bring along only volunteers; link the initiative to a business imperative; produce early results; and manage expectations. Momentum is gained by continuing to act based on what is learned at each step. The launch of Clorox's Green Works product line is discussed as an example.