Day-of-the-Week Effects in the Long-Run Performance of Initial Public Offerings

This study examines the influence of day-of-the-week patterns in security returns on long-run IPO underperformance. Comparisons are made between the IPOs in Ritter's [20] database, and a constructed set of matching firms based on SIC code and size, using NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ securities. It is found that virtually all of the IPO underperformance occurs on Mondays and Tuesdays and that the degree of underperformance significantly differs from other days. Thus, a common explanation may exist for the general day-of-the-week pattern in security returns and IPO long-run underperformance.     

Earnings Management and the Long-Run Market Performance of Initial Public Offerings

Issuers of initial public offerings (IPOs) can report earnings in excess of cash flows by taking positive accruals. This paper provides evidence that issuers with unusually high accruals in the IPO year experience poor stock return performance in the three years thereafter. IPO issuers in the most "aggressive" quartile of earnings managers have a three-year aftermarket stock return of approximately 20 percent less than IPO issuers in the most "conservative" quartile. They also issue about 20 percent fewer seasoned equity offerings. These differences are statistically and economically significant in a variety of specifications.     

Long-Run Operating Performance of Initial Public Offerings in Japanese Over-the-Counter Market (1991–2001): Evidence and Implications

This paper implements a comprehensive study on the long run post-issue operating performance of more than 700 initially public offerings (IPOs) in the Japanese over-the-counter market (JASDAQ) from 1991 to 2001. Empirical results document dramatic and continuing operating underperformance that are robust to industry or mean reversion adjustment. The diagnostic tests for behavioral explanations further uncover the salient decline of market expectations by various measures over the post issuing years, as well as the upsurge in company expansion around the offering years followed by the striking dwindle soon afterwards. These findings jointly shed light on the systematic over-optimism of market investors and managers at the time of IPO events. The multiple regression analysis also demonstrates robust evidence that is favorable for the hypotheses of “Windows of Opportunity” and market timing. In contrast, we do not find that there are significant associations between changes in alternative insider ownership and the evolution of operating performance. We suggest the explanations based on the agency problem theory are not effective in explaining the long run operating underperformance of JASDAQ IPOs.JEL Classification Code: G30, G31, D80, D84     

Myth or Reality? The Long-Run Underperformance of Initial Public Offerings: Evidence from Venture and Nonventure Capital-Backed Companies

We investigate the long-run underperformance of recent initial public offering (IPO) firms in a sample of 934 venture-backed IPOs from 1972–1992 and 3,407 nonventure-backed IPOs from 1975–1992. We find that venture-backed IPOs outperform non-venture-backed IPOs using equal weighted returns. Value weighting significantly reduces performance differences and substantially reduces underperformance for nonventure-backed IPOs. In tests using several comparable benchmarks and the Fama-French (1993) three factor asset pricing model, venture-backed companies do not significantly underperform, while the smallest nonventure-backed firms do. Underperformance, however, is not an IPO effect. Similar size and book-to-market firms that have not issued equity perform as poorly as IPOs.     

Institutional Allocation in Initial Public Offerings: Empirical Evidence

We analyze institutional allocation in initial public offerings (IPOs) using a new data set of U.S. offerings between 1997 and 1998. We document a positive relationship between institutional allocation and day one IPO returns. This is partly explained by the practice of giving institutions more shares in IPOs with strong premarket demand, consistent with book-building theories. However, institutional allocation also contains private information about first-day IPO returns not reflected in premarket demand and other public information. Our evidence supports book-building theories of IPO underpricing, but suggests that institutional allocation in underpriced issues is in excess of that explained by book-building alone.     

Property Investment and Property Development Firm Performance Around Initial Public Offerings and Rights Offerings: U.K. Evidence

In contrast to the well-documented underperformance of equity issuers, property investment firms undertaking initial public offerings and rights issues have performed indistinguishably from similar nonissuing firms. Property development companies that issued equity over the same period performed significantly worse than nonissuing firms. The major difference between property development and property investment firms is that property investment firms hold portfolios of real estate assets and thus have more certain prices. The lower pricing uncertainty of property investment firms results in normal long-run performance. Tests of the cognitive bias hypothesis provide only weak support of this explanation, while size and book-market effects are unable to account for the performance of property investment and development companies. The findings of underperformance for rights issues suggest that timing equity issues to take advantage of new shareholders may not be linked to the existence of cognitive bias. An important finding for the international growth in securitized real estate markets is that no evidence is found suggesting equity issues of securitized real estate firms should be avoided.     

Some Evidence on the Uniqueness of Initial Public Debt Offerings

Debt initial public offerings (IPOs) represent a major shift in a firm's financing policy by both extending debt maturity and altering the public-private debt mix. In contrast to findings for seasoned debt offerings, we document a significantly negative stock price response to debt IPO announcements. This result is consistent with debt maturity and debt ownership structure theories. The equity wealth effect is negatively related to the offer's maturity, and positively related to the degree of bank monitoring. We find that firms with less information asymmetry and firms with higher growth opportunities experience a less adverse stock price response.     

The Diversification Effects of Initial Public Offerings

Abstract:  A firm's stock becomes publicly tradable through an initial public offering (IPO). This study suggests a portfolio diversification perspective to explore IPOs. We examine whether investors can gain diversification benefits by adding an IPO portfolio to a set of benchmark portfolios sorted by firm size and book-to-market ratio. Using US IPOs from 1980-2002, we find that adding a value-weighted IPO portfolio does lead to a statistically and economically significant enlargement of the investment opportunity set for investors relative to investing solely in a set of benchmark portfolios. Specifically, the Sharpe ratio of the tangency portfolio increases by 5.50% on average after including IPO stocks. Furthermore, IPOs associated with prestigious lead underwriters are the main source of this augmentation of the mean-variance investment opportunity set. Finally, our study implies that issuing IPO exchange traded funds or similar products can provide diversification gains to investors.     

The Initial Public Offerings of Listed Firms

A number of firms in the United Kingdom list without issuing equity and then issue equity shortly thereafter. We argue that this two‐stage offering strategy is less costly than an initial public offering (IPO) because trading reduces the valuation uncertainty of these firms before they issue equity. We find that initial returns are 10% to 30% lower for these firms than for comparable IPOs, and we provide evidence that the market in the firm's shares lowers financing costs. We also show that these firms time the market both when they list and when they issue equity.     

Underpricing and Firm Quality in Initial Public Offerings: Evidence from Singapore

Firms seeking initial public listings on the Stock Exchange of Singapore can choose between offering their shares at a fixed price or selling them in two tranches: the first tranche is offered at a fixed price while the issue price of the second tranche is determined via a tender system. Consistent with the existing signalling literature, tendering IPO firms underprice their fixed price tranche more than non-tendering IPO firms. The underpricing in the fixed tranche is recouped through higher proceeds from the tender tranche. Our evidence suggests that IPO firms use the tender option to signal superior firm quality.     

The Role of Lockups in Initial Public Offerings

In a sample of 2,794 initial public offerings (IPOs), we testthree potential explanations for the existence of IPO lockups:lockups serve as (i) a signal of firm quality, (ii) a commitmentdevice to alleviate moral hazard problems, or (iii) a mechanismfor underwriters to extract additional compensation from theissuing firm. Our results support the commitment hypothesis.Insiders of firms that are associated with greater potentialfor moral hazard lockup their shares for a longer period oftime. Insiders of firms that have experienced larger excessreturns, are backed by venture capitalists, or go public withhigh-quality underwriters are more likely to be released fromthe lockup restrictions.     

Initial Public Offerings and Underwriter Reputation

This paper examined the returns earned by subscribing to initial public offerings of equity (IPOs). Rock (1986) suggests that IPO returns are required by uninformed investors as compensation for the risk of trading against superior information. We show that IPOs with more informed investor capital require higher returns. The marketing underwriter's reputation reveals the expected level of “informed” activity. Prestigious underwriters are associated with lower risk offerings. With less risk there is less incentive to acquire information and fewer informed investors. Consequently, prestigious underwriters are associated with IPOs that have lower returns.     

The Long Run Share Price Performance of Malaysian Initial Public Offerings (IPOs)

Abstract:  This paper investigates the long run share price performance of 454 Malaysian IPOs during the period 1990 to 2000. In contrast with developed markets, significant over performance is found for equally-weighted event time CARs and buy-and-hold returns using two market benchmarks, though not for value-weighted returns or using a matched company benchmark. The significant abnormal performance also disappears under the calendar-time approach using the Fama-French (1993) three factor model. While the long run performance of Main and Second Board IPOs does not differ, the year of listing, issue proceeds and initial returns are found to be performance-related.     

Analyst Following and Equity Offerings Subsequent to Initial Public Offerings

Analyst forecast information is collected for firms following their IPOs and is used in an examination of subsequent seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). Consistent with information asymmetry arguments, the analysis indicates that a larger percentage of firms conducting SEOs within three years of the IPO are covered by financial analysts than those without SEOs, and that analyst coverage is a significant predictor of subsequent SEOs. In addition, the results indicate that long-term earnings growth forecasts are larger for firms with subsequent SEOs, but growth forecasts decline significantly following the SEOs. Further, SEO abnormal returns exhibit a significant negative relationship with earnings growth forecasts. These results are consistent with windows of opportunity arguments since they suggest that SEOs are timed to coincide with the peak of earnings growth expectations, but that market participants compensate by reacting more negatively to offerings by firms with high growth forecasts.     

A Note on the Intraday Patterns of Initial Public Offerings: Evidence from Hong Kong

This paper examines the intraday patterns of IPOs in Hong Kong during the period 1995–1998. The results reveal that the well‐known under‐pricing phenomenon of IPOs occurs only at the opening trading of new issues and vanishes afterwards. The return volatility of IPOs is found to be high during the first trading session, and declines rapidly during the rest of the first trading day until the end of the trading day. The intraday return volatility of IPOs is found to follow a double U‐shape pattern, which is similar to that of the general market. A great deal of trading activity was recorded during the first five minutes of the trading day. Consistent results are obtained for IPOs registered during the pre‐crisis and post‐crisis periods. This paper has practical implications for investors. Investors can benefit from the under‐pricing only if they subscribe for new shares in the primary market. There is, however, no profit‐making opportunity for day traders who buy shares on the first trading day. This shows that the Hong Kong market is efficient in adjusting for the IPO under‐pricing. In addition, it is likely that, because of Hong Kong's share allotment method, only big investors who apply for large numbers of shares can benefit from this under‐pricing phenomenon.     

Initial Public Offerings: Evidence from the British,French and Swedish Property Share Markets

This paper investigates the underpricing and long-run performance of initial public offerings (IPOs), using a unique sample consisting of 54 British, French and Swedish property companies, which became publicly listed during the period 1984–1999. Similar to common stock IPOs, the European property share IPOs in our sample outperformed the benchmark on the first day of trading, on average with 2.55 percent. However, these property share IPOs tend to underperform their benchmark over the twelve-month period subsequent to the initial offering. We also examine explanatory factors such as issue size, the degree of debt financing, ex-ante uncertainty, and the underlying property types of the companies involved. The results are in line with those previously found for common stocks.     

Venture Capitalist Certification in Initial Public Offerings

This paper provides support for the certification role of venture capitalists in initial public offerings. Consistent with the certification hypothesis, a comparison of venture capital backed IPOs with a control sample of nonventure capital backed IPOs from 1983 through 1987 matched as closely as possible by industry and offering size indicates that venture capital backing results in significantly lower initial returns and gross spreads. In effect, the presence of venture capitalists in the issuing firms serves to lower the total costs of going public and to maximize the net proceeds to the offering firm. In addition, we document that venture capitalists retain a significant portion of their holdings in the firm after the IPO.     

Managing News Coverage around Initial Public Offerings

We examine opportunistic behavior of initial public offering (IPO) firms in Taiwan where they are required to disclose their own earnings forecasts and are unrestricted in releasing news around the offerings. We find that prior to the offerings, IPO firms tend to report higher earnings, disclose inflated earnings forecasts, and manage more good news. News management, however, emerges as the most predominant factor in aftermarket stock prices. In particular, IPO firms have a strong preference for releasing good news related to strategy/policy that may simply provide a vision of a firm's future. Furthermore, the news releases are often forward-looking when they are positive about the firms but tend to be realized when they are negative. IPO firms also tend to engage in more window dressing activities before a larger sale of IPO shares from existing shareholders or a larger decline in insiders' holdings. Our analysis shows that managerial optimism cannot fully account for their behavior .     

The Disparate Nature of Targeted Repurchases: Evidence from Long-Run Performance

Abstract:  We examine the announcement stock returns and long-run performance of 352 targeted repurchases from 1979 to 1998. For those repurchases of blocks that are non-control related we find a positive announcement stock price response and positive long-run stock performance indicating that these repurchases are timed to occur when the company's shares are undervalued and that the market underreacts to this signal. In contrast, for those repurchases of blocks that are control related we find a negative announcement stock price response and insignificant long-run stock performance indicating that these repurchases occur for a different reason. We conclude that control related repurchases are utilized solely to dismiss potential takeover bids and are not timed when the stock is undervalued.