Economic freedom and IPO underpricing

This paper examines how the difference in institutional environments constitutes differential IPO underpricing across countries. Using the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom (IEF) as a proxy for the heterogeneous institutional environment, and a sample of 3728 IPOs from 22 countries and regions over the period 1993–2014, we find that countries with higher economic freedom have significantly less serious IPO underpricing problems. Moreover, we find that among the 10 economic freedom factors covered by theIEF, financial freedom related factors play a more important role in reducing the IPO underpricing problem. Finally, consistent with the market sentiment hypothesis, we find strong evidence that pre-IPO market sentiment influences IPO first-day returns, and that the IPO underpricing problem is less severe when the market is bearish.     

Government Public Policy, Regulatory Intervention, and Their Impact on IPO Underpricing: The Case of Malaysian IPOs

This study examines the impact of government initial public offering (IPO) regulation intending on promoting public policy. The study examines the results of the implementation of a Malaysian government policy in 1976, which mandated that at least 30 percent of any new shares on an IPO offer be sold to the indigenous Bumiputera population or to mutual funds owned by them. The study examined the short-run and long-run underpricing of Malaysian IPOs and found that Malaysian IPOs are highly underpriced compared to IPOs in developing countries, creating a market microstructure effect. It also confirmed that the Malaysian government's regulatory intervention in spite of noble public policy intentions appeared to be the significant factor for the emergence of an average first-day underpricing increase of Malaysian IPOs by 61 percent during the period after the regulatory economic policy was instituted. Furthermore, the study found that this high underpricing persists even for the long run, in contrast to the long-run performance of IPOs in the United States.     

The role of internationalization on the IPO performance of service firms: Examination of initial returns,long-run returns,and survivability

This study examines the effect of internationalization on the initial and long-run IPO performance of service firms. The study discusses that pre-IPO internationalization of service firms contributes to the explanation of long-discussed IPO underpricing phenomenon, and underperformance of IPOs in the long-run. Sample of the study includes 1822 IPO issues conducted by US service firms between 1980 and 2009. Findings of the study suggest that international service firms leave less money on table in their IPOs compared to domestic service firms by providing significantly lower first day returns to their investors on their first day of public trading. Moreover, our findings provide evidence that 3-year cumulative abnormal returns and 3-year buy-and-hold returns of international service firms are significantly higher than domestic service firms, and international service firms outperform domestic service firms in both operating return on assets and operating cash flows in the post-IPO period. Lastly, the study documents that survival rate of service firms subsequent to an IPO issue increases with pre-IPO internationalization.     

承销费用、政府定价管制与 IPO 抑价--来自中国首次公开发行公司的经验证据

选择2001年11月1日至2012年12月31日的中国A股IPO公司为研究样本,分析承销费用与IPO抑价之间的关系及其在政府定价管制程度不同情况下对承销费用与IPO抑价关系的影响。结果显示,承销费用与IPO抑价呈正相关关系;而政府定价管制程度的提高会削弱承销费用与IPO抑价之间的正相关关系,甚至会使其转向负相关关系。     

The Distribution of IPO Holdings Across Institutional Mutual Funds

We examine initial public offering (IPO) holdings in the mutual funds of four large investment banks and five large non-investment banks during the period 1997 through 2002. Investment banks hold IPOs with different characteristics than IPOs held by non-investment banks, and they also tend to hold IPOs in different types of funds than non-investment banks. We classify holdings as to whether the IPO lies outside or inside the fund’s objective. Investment banks hold IPOs outside the fund objective in 27% of the fund/IPO pairs while non-investment banks hold outside their objective in just 5.4% of fund/IPO pairs. We see significant differences in IPO underpricing for both groups as well. For example, when non-investment banks hold IPOs outside a large capitalization fund objective, they select IPOs with 52% higher underpricing as measured by first-day returns.     

IPO抑价与证券市场制度变迁

IPO抑价是股票市场一个普遍存在的一个现象,我国也不例外。国外的理论重在研究IPO抑价的原因,且这些理论都是建立在市场有效的前提条件之上的,用这些理论解释我国IPO抑价率过高的情况不是特别合适。本文就我国证券市场各个阶段定价方式和发行制度的特征及各阶段IPO抑价率的情况做一简要分析,并针对IPO抑价存在的问题提出对策建议。     

Strategic behavior of insiders in initial underpricing and long-run underperformance

We study strategic behavior of insiders in ChiNext IPOs. Since traditional initial underpricing is not appropriate due to the jawbone P/E ratio approach and maximum initial return cap we propose two alternative measures. We identify a significantly positive relationship between insiders' shareholdings and initial underpricing. With no discretion on IPO offer price, the insiders implement earnings management to maintain higher stock prices induced by regulatory changes and high market demand and to facilitate selling their unlocked shares after lockup expiration. We confirm a negative impact from insiders' share sales on long-term performance but don't observe a dramatic underperformance as documented.     

Subscriber return, underpricing, and long-term performance of U.K. privatization initial public offers

This study distinguishes between issuer underpricing and subscriber returns, and estimates their magnitudes for U.K. privatization initial public offers (PIPOs). It proposes and tests empirical models which incorporate theoretical, institutional, and other factors which interact to explain subscriber returns and issuer underpricing. The estimates reveal that, on average, issuer underpricing, which is measured relative to the total equity market value on the first day of trading, is 23.62%, whereas the average raw return available to subscribers is up to 41%. Regression analysis shows that underwriters' commission, market volatility, regulatory situation of the company, proportion of share clawback, and demand for shares taken together explain up to 70% of the variation in issuer underpricing and 64% of subscribers' returns. The evaluation of the long-run performance of PIPOs to assess the extent to which initial gains to subscribers persist for longer periods concludes that U.K. PIPOs, on average, provide long-run holding gains to investors, unlike their private sector counterparts.     

媒体关注对IPO抑价影响路径探究——基于创业板的经验证据

文章重点探讨媒体关注对我国IPO抑价影响的具体路径。基于上市公司IPO及之前的媒体信息,选取创业板IPO公司作为研究样本,从行为金融学视角对抑价理论进行实证检验。经路径研究发现,高媒体关注通过配置投资者“有限注意力”导致高发行抑价,在个人投资者比例较高的创业板市场上,媒体关注对IPO抑价的影响路径是基于情绪效应而不是认知效应。     

Price limits,investor sentiment,and initial public offering underpricing: A quasi-natural experiment based on ChiNext

Based on the data on initial public offerings (IPOs) listed on Growth Enterprises Market (ChiNext) in 2009–2018, this paper examines the impact of first-day listing price limits on IPO underpricing by adopting the event study and regression discontinuity design models. Our research indicates that the implementation of price limits significantly increases IPO underpricing by intensifying investor sentiment and encouraging market speculation. We also find that price limits have different impacts on companies with different characteristics such as innovation capacity and ownership structure. Our research may suggest how to improve the effectiveness of regulatory policy as well as current ChiNext and IPO market reforms.     

风险投资对创业板市场IPO抑价的影响

通过对218家在创业板上市公司首次公开发行当天股价上涨现象进行研究,结果表明在创业板推出初期上市的公司存在严重的IPO抑价。中国创业板近70%的公司有风险资本背景,但是创业企业的风险资本对抑价水平的影响不显著,上市公司本身的特点和财务业绩因素对IPO抑价影响也不显著。中国创业板市场IPO抑价严重的原因是创业板市场运行机制不成熟,二级股票市场投机情况严重。另外,付市盈率、中签率、换手率等对IPO抑价水平影响显著。     

Disclosure of Downside Risk and Investors' Use of Qualitative Information: Evidence from the IPO Prospectus's Risk Factor Section

I use the context of a company's initial public offering (IPO) of equity securities as a capital‐market setting to empirically study the economic consequences of risk factor disclosures. Using data from Australian IPOs, I examine the relation of textual risk disclosures in the prospectus to initial underpricing. I find that the quantity of disclosures in the risk factor section itself has no significant impact on initial underpricing. However, an increase in the informativeness of risk factor disclosures is associated with lower IPO underpricing. My results suggest that IPOs that provide informative risk factor disclosures have less ex ante uncertainty, in the sense that the disclosures help investors estimate the dispersion of secondary market value. The effect of informative risk factor disclosures on IPO underpricing is more pronounced for IPOs with less prestigious lead underwriters and is mainly driven by younger firms, smaller firms, and firms with poorer operating performance prior to their IPOs. Collectively, my findings suggest that informative disclosures of downside risk are useful for investors to evaluate IPOs.     

承销商声誉与IPO抑价的实证分析——基于我国股票发行监管制度改革

通过以我国沪深两市793个A股为样本,建立回归模型,检验承销商声誉与IPO抑价的关系发现,随着股票发行监管制度变迁,承销商逐渐开始注重声誉建设和维护;另外,由于我国股票发行定价制度的非完全市场化,整体上承销商声誉与IPO抑价成正相关关系。这一结论说明了我国股票发行监管制度改革是有效的,强化了承销商的责任和风险防范,有利于加快承销商间的优胜劣汰,有利于承销商声誉机制的形成,促进了我国证券市场承销商对声誉的建设与维护。     

Does reputation of sponsors matter in IPO? Evidence from Hong Kong

Contrary to other markets where underwriters perform a combined role of underwriting and sponsoring in an Initial Public Offering (IPO), IPO issuers in Hong Kong must appoint at least one sponsor in addition to the underwriters. The splitting of the single role of underwriters into two separate ones offers an ideal setting to disentangle the effects of the two roles and to examine which of the two roles—sponsor or underwriter—is more important in explaining IPO underpricing and initial volatility in the Hong Kong equity market. Interestingly, our findings provide supportive evidence that the sponsor reputation does matter in an IPO and it is even more significant than the underwriter reputation in explaining the IPO underpricing phenomenon. Given the recent high-tech fervor, our research goes deeper to examine specifically the role of sponsors on high-tech firms, with results indicating that the reliance on sponsors is higher for traditional issuers than for technology firms. We further discover that sponsors and underwriters are playing substitution roles rather than complementary roles. In order to examine the regulatory policy impact, our research also compares the role of IPO sponsors before and after the launch of the new sponsor regulatory regime in 2013. The empirical findings lend support to our argument that after the launch of the new regulations, public awareness of sponsors is raised, respect towards more reputable sponsor increases, and thus, the role of sponsors becomes more important than before.     

Signaling and initial public offerings: The use and impact of the lockup period

To reduce information asymmetries for potential investors considering investment in an IPO venture, owners can signal the firm's longer-term viability and quality in several ways. The lockup period, is one signal that can be offered. We investigated the lockup period of a sample of 640 ventures going through the IPO and find that a longer lockup period acts as a substitute signal to venture capital (VC) and prestigious underwriter backing. Furthermore, we find that ventures which have a going concern issue can reduce the amount of underpricing at the time of the IPO by accepting a longer lockup period.     

Does corporate hedging affect firm valuation? Evidence from the IPO market

Focusing on the IPO market, we examine the influence of corporate hedging on firm valuation. Consistent with the argument that hedging reduces information asymmetry, we find that hedging IPO firms are associated with lower price revisions and underwriting fees. More important, hedging reduces IPO underpricing, especially for informationally opaque firms. This provides strong evidence that corporate hedging increases firm valuation. We also show that corporate hedging lowers aftermarket idiosyncratic volatility, enhances aftermarket liquidity, and improves the long-term performance of IPO firms. We use both an instrumental variable approach and a regulation change on derivatives supply to address endogeneity concerns.     

Returns on ADRs and arbitrage in emerging markets

In this paper we compare the distributions of ADR returns and the returns of the locally traded shares between Chile and Argentina. This comparison is interesting because both countries are emerging economies with a similar free market orientation and the trading hours in both countries virtually coincide with the trading hours in New York. Argentina and Chile differ, however, in two important aspects: During our sample period: (1) The Argentinean market was completely under a fixed-exchange rate system, while Chile maintained a flexible exchange rate regime; and (2) Argentina did not impose any restrictions on foreign investments, while Chile did. We find that the return distributions of the Chilean ADRs are significantly different from the distributions of the returns on the respective underlying Chilean shares. While the mean returns are the same, the return's S.D. are significantly different. In contrast, the hypothesis that the distributions of the returns on the Argentinean ADRs and the returns on their respective underlying shares are the same cannot be rejected. We then use a threshold model to estimate the transaction costs of trading the ADRs and the locally traded shares. We find that the transaction costs that must be added to the returns spread before arbitrage is possible were between 100 and 200 basis points for Chilean ADRs. It was between 66 and 165 basis points for the Argentinean ADRs. The daily return spread reversion caused by arbitrage activities was estimated to be approximately 30% for Chilean ADRs and 40% for Argentinean ADRs. Finally, we cannot reject the hypothesis that low liquidity was a major factor in the cost difference between the two countries.     

The Effects of Industrial Policy Support on IPO Performance: Evidence from Listed Enterprises of the Chinese SMEs Board

This study examines the effects of industrial policy support on the initial public offering performance of listed enterprises on the Chinese small and medium‐sized enterprises board. We observe that industrial policy support has a positive effect on IPO performance. In addition, we provide evidence that after the financial crisis, the decrease of IPO underpricing resulting from policy support implemented three months before firms going public is less than that deriving from the policy support issued six months prior to listing, whereas the effect of industrial policy support on post‐IPO operating performance has increased after the financial crisis.     

Foreign Firms Issuing Equity on US Exchanges: An Empirical Investigation of IPOs and SEOs

We analyse a sample of foreign firms issuing equity in the USA to determine the factors that affect IPO and SEO pricing. The average SEO discount, defined as the percentage difference between the price in the local market on the offering date and the SEO offer price, is 2.07%, and is significantly lower for stocks that are ultimately listed on the NYSE/AMEX than for stocks that are listed on the Nasdaq. Foreign equity issues are underpriced; the traditional underpricing discount, which is defined as the percentage difference between the closing price on the first day of trading and the offer price, is 18.75% on average. Equity issuers from industry groups with the largest six–month pre–IPO return in the US market experience a higher level of underpricing. For the subsample of emerging market issues, we document that, in the after–market, the ADR price remains persistently above the dollar denominated price in the domestic market for up to 90 days following the date of the issue.