Does the Presence of Venture Capitalists Improve the Survival Profile of IPO Firms?

The role of venture capital in the creation of the public corporation is now widely recognized. This study investigates whether venture capitalists add value to the going public process by improving the survival profile of IPO issuers. The survival of IPO issuers is not only likely to depend on managerial actions but also on the effectiveness of key market participants such as investment bankers and analysts. The form and function of the venture capital industry allows venture capitalists to influence the actions of managers, investment bankers, and analysts, and attract institutional interest. Conducting survival analyses using the Cox hazard methodology, we find that the involvement of venture capitalists improves the survival profile of IPO firms. Several other variables that are potentially influenced by VC involvement like R&D allocations, analyst following, investment banker prestige, and success on road shows are also positively related to the survival time of IPO issuers.     

Governance,product market competition and cash management in IPO firms

This study evaluates the link between CEO governance heterogeneity, power structure of the firm, and product market competition on various facets of post-IPO cash policy. Our results suggest that post-IPO cash holdings as well as marginal value of cash reserves are higher under a founder CEO governance regime relative to non-founder CEOs. Concentrating board power in the hands of founder CEOs however, reduces their ability to maintain higher post-IPO cash reserves. Our results also suggest that product market competition influences both the level and marginal value of cash reserves in the hands of founder CEOs. Further, we find that stronger internal governance reduces the tendency of IPO firms to deploy excess cash reserves to fund internal investments in excess of industry rivals. Finally, our results suggest that excess cash reserves in competitive industry environments lead to superior post-IPO operating performance.     

IPO waves, product market competition, and the going public decision: Theory and evidence

We develop a new rationale for initial public offering (IPO) waves based on product market considerations. Two firms, with differing productivity levels, compete in an industry with a significant probability of a positive productivity shock. Going public, though costly, not only allows a firm to raise external capital cheaply, but also enables it to grab market share from its private competitors. We solve for the decision of each firm to go public versus remain private, and the optimal timing of going public. In equilibrium, even firms with sufficient internal capital to fund their new investment may go public, driven by the possibility of their product market competitors going public. IPO waves may arise in equilibrium even in industries which do not experience a productivity shock. Our model predicts that firms going public during an IPO wave will have lower productivity and post-IPO profitability but larger cash holdings than those going public off the wave; it makes similar predictions for firms going public later versus earlier in an IPO wave. We empirically test and find support for these predictions.     

Public market staging: The timing of capital infusions in newly public firms

We examine financing activities of newly public firms for evidence on capital staging in the public equity market. Staging (sequential financing) can increase issuance costs but can limit costs associated with overinvestment. We find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that staging is employed to help control the overinvestment problem in public firms. Initial public offering (IPO) proceeds, relative to external financing requirements, are smaller for firms with more intangible assets and more research and development (R&D)-intensive firms. Asset intangibility and R&D intensity are also both negatively related to the length of time from a firm's IPO to its first post-IPO capital infusion.     

D&O insurance and IPO performance: What can we learn from insurers?

We investigate whether a firm’s directors’ and officers’ liability insurance contract at the time of the IPO is related to insured firms’ first year post-IPO performance. We find that insurers charge a higher premium per dollar of coverage to protect the directors and officers of firms that will subsequently have poor first year post-IPO stock performance. A higher price of coverage is also associated with a higher post-IPO volatility and lower Sharpe ratio. Our results are robust to various econometric specifications and suggest that even when the high level of information asymmetry inherent to the IPO context prevails, insurers have information about the firms’ prospects that should be valuable to outside investors.     

IPO underwriting and subsequent lending

This study investigates the relation between IPO underwriting and subsequent lending. We find that when a bank underwrites a firm’s IPO, the bank is more likely to provide the issuer with future loans at a lower cost, compared to banks without an IPO underwriting relationship. The evidence also suggests that the underwriting banks share information surplus with the IPO firms in the post-IPO loans, supporting the cost-saving hypothesis. Overall, the evidence for the relation between prior IPO underwriting and subsequent lending supports the notion that firms can derive value from investment bank relationships.     

The influence of the media on government decisions: Evidence from IPOs in China

In contrast to most developed countries that use registration systems, China has implemented an approval system for initial public offering (IPO) applications. As this IPO approval system involves more than a compliance test, the process allows regulators to exercise a large degree of discretion, which provides an opportunity to observe regulators' decision making in capital markets. We examine the outcomes of firms' IPO applications from 2008 to 2014 and find evidence that the media influence regulators' decisions on IPO applications. Specifically, firms that experience negative news coverage are more likely to have their IPO applications rejected. Negative news influences government decisions via both information and monitoring roles. The political connections of a firm can alleviate an adverse outcome from negative news. Moreover, negative news predicts a higher probability of committing fraud as well as lower earnings persistence in the post-IPO period. The evidence from the post-IPO period suggests that the media help improve the efficiency of regulators' decision making. Our results are robust to controlling for endogeneity issues and to adopting alternative measures of news negativity and an alternative sample.     

Are share price levels informative? Evidence from the ownership, pricing, turnover and performance of IPO firms

We ask whether a firm's choice of IPO price is informative in the sense that it relates systematically to the firm's other choices and characteristics. We find that both institutional ownership and underwriter reputation increases monotonically with the chosen IPO price level. We also find that the relationship between IPO price and underpricing is U-shaped. In contrast, post-IPO turnover displays an inverted U-shaped relation to IPO price. Moreover, firms choosing a higher (lower) stock price level experience lower (higher) mortality rates. Our results are robust to controls for market liquidity and firm size, and for partial adjustment of IPO prices based on pre-market information.     

Innovation capability and post-IPO performance

This paper studies how firms’ innovation capability is related to their stock performance and eventual survival for a sample of biotech IPO firms. We create product-related measures of firms’ innovation capability by tracking the changes in R&D expenses, products, patents, strategic alliances, and product development stages for our sample firms, as disclosed in their IPO prospectuses and third post-IPO 10-K filings. We find that innovation capability is critical to contemporaneous stock performance and eventual firm survival. Biotech IPO firms are more likely to succeed in the long run, if they are able to expand the scale of their research undertakings and make progress in these research activities.     

Does the Market Incorporate Previous IPO Withdrawals When Pricing Second‐Time IPOs?

This paper examines the initial public offering (IPO) valuations of issuers that return to the IPO market successfully after withdrawing their first IPO attempt. We find that these second-time IPOs sell at a significant discount relative to similar contemporaneous IPOs that succeed in their first attempt. We also demonstrate that switching underwriters on the second IPO attempt reduces, but does not eliminate, the discount for second-time IPOs. When compared to their matched first-time IPOs, second-time IPOs have similar price revisions and post-IPO long-run stock and operating performances. Overall, these results suggest that the negative information conveyed by the withdrawal event is incorporated into the lower offer valuations for second-time IPOs. Switching investment banks can mitigate, but not eliminate, the perceived higher risk of the second-time offerings.     

IPO pricing: growth rates implied in offer prices

This paper studies the valuation of companies going public and defines a methodology to infer the growth expectations implicit in the prices of their Initial Public Offering (IPO). The proposed reverse-engineered DCF model is operable by individual investors, as it does not require access to private information or sell-side analysts’ forecasts. Applying the procedure to a sample of IPOs in three European countries (France, Italy, and Germany), we estimate the cash flow growth implied by offer prices and examine the bias of implied growth in comparison to the realized. We find that the estimated growth in cash flow is much higher than its actual realization, with the median IPO firm overvalued at the offering by 74%. Estimation errors increase with IPO firms’ leverage and underpricing, and decrease with age, size, and book-to-market ratios. Further tests find that post-IPO stock returns are lower for issues whose implied growth is more upward biased.     

The Pricing of Initial Public Offers of Corporate Straight Debt

This study examines the initial-day and aftermarket price performance of corporate straight debt IPOs. We find that IPOs of speculative grade debt are underpriced like equity IPOs, while those rated investment grade are overpriced. IPOs of investment grade debt are typically issued by firms listed on the major exchanges and underwritten by prestigious underwriters. In contrast, junk bond IPOs are more likely to be handled by less prestigious underwriters and are typically issued by OTC firms. Our analysis also reveals that bond rating, market listing of the firm, and investment banker quality are significant determinants of bond IPO returns.     

On investment banker monitoring in the new issues market

This article primarily addresses two largely unanswered questions in the financial economics literature: (i) is there a demand for lead bank monitoring in the initial public offering (IPO) market?, and (ii) does monitoring by the lead investment banker lead to better post-issue performance? We find evidence consistent with the demand for underwriter monitoring in the IPO market. We examine variables which proxy for the incentives of lead underwriters to supply monitoring post-issue. These variables include lead investment bank reputation and whether warrants are issued to the underwriter by the issuing firm. We find that lead bank reputation is positively associated with the post-issue performance of IPO firms. We also examine whether additional value added monitoring is provided by unaffiliated analysts. The number of unaffiliated analysts following is positively correlated with post-issue performance. Our results are consistent with third party monitoring in the new issues market.     

Post-IPO Directors' Sales and Reissuing Activity: An Empirical Test of IPO Signalling Models

Signalling models of IPO underpricing argue that owners of high-quality firms signal firm quality by underpricing shares sold at the IPO and retaining a large equity stake because they benefit from IPO signalling by selling further shares in the aftermarket at a higher share price. This hypothesis is tested by examining whether the probabilities and volumes of subsequent share issues or insider sales are related to the proposed IPO signals. There is evidence that post-IPO share issuance is related to initial returns, but the same is not true for insider selling. Moreover, little evidence is found to support the view that the proportion of equity retained by initial owners is an IPO signal. Therefore, the signalling hypothesis is rejected.     

What is the effect of an additional dollar of IPO proceeds?

We examine the effect of IPO proceeds on post-IPO liquidity and market monitoring. To do so we exploit variation in the amount of proceeds raised that is unrelated to firm size and manager decisions using an instrumental variable approach. We find that marginal increases in IPO proceeds lead to large increases in liquidity, analyst coverage, and institutional ownership in the first two years a firm is public. Increases in IPO proceeds also lead to more frequent follow-on offerings and longer survival as a public firm. We find evidence that immediate shocks to ownership dispersion represent one plausible channel through which changes in IPO proceeds affect long-run liquidity and market monitoring. Overall, our findings support the theoretical liquidity and market quality benefits associated with reductions in ownership concentration.     

Merger-Motivated IPOs

In this paper, we find support for initial public offerings (IPOs) motivated by subsequent acquisition activity. Over a third of newly public firms enter the market for corporate control as acquirers within three years of the IPO. We find that IPOs facilitate acquisitions in a number of ways. Newly public firms benefit from the cash raised in the IPO, from subsequent access to public financing, and from ability to pay with publicly traded stock for acquisitions. IPO firms also benefit by obtaining market feedback and by taking advantage of high post-IPO stock values in making stock-based acquisitions at favorable terms.     

Working for the enemy? The impact of investment banker job changes on deal flow

This paper examines the impact of job changes by prominent investment bankers on the M&A and equity market shares of investment banks. Using a hand-collected sample of job changes between 1998 and 2006, we find that after controlling for deal and bank-level characteristics, hiring a banker from an investment bank with a more prominent industry presence has a positive impact on both equity and M&A market share for the gaining bank and a negative impact on the losing bank's M&A market share. After the banker switches firms, we find a significant amount of business following the banker from the losing bank to the gaining bank, particularly when the relationship is strong between the client firm and the banker. Abnormal returns around the announcement of a banker changing employers are positive and significant for the gaining bank, suggesting that the market views banker additions as value increasing. Overall, our results suggest human capital is a critical component of investment banking deal flow.     

Political connection of financial intermediaries: Evidence from China's IPO market

Using a sample of Chinese Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) from 2006 to 2011, we document that politically connected (PC) underwriters increase the likelihood of clients’ IPO applications being approved by the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). We further show that PC underwriters charge premium underwriting fees. Consistent with the rent-seeking argument, we find that minority shareholders’ interests may be impaired as indicated by post-IPO underperformance. We do not detect significant differences in the underpricing of IPO deals underwritten by PC versus non-PC investment banks.     

Regulations,earnings management,and post-IPO performance: The Chinese evidence

In this study, we examine whether government regulatory initiatives in China involving IPO by SOEs may have contributed to opportunistic behaviors by the issuer. We focus on two sets of IPO regulations issued between January 1, 1996 and February 11, 1999: pricing regulations, which stipulate that IPO prices be a function of accounting performance, and penalty regulations, which penalize IPO firms for overly optimistic forecasts. We find that IPO firms that report better pricing-period accounting performance have larger declines in post-IPO profitability, lower first-day stock returns and worse long-run post-IPO stock performance. Furthermore, IPO firms that make overoptimistic forecasts also have lower first-day returns and worse post-IPO stock performance. Using non-core earnings as the proxy for earnings management, we document some evidence that IPO firms that report higher pricing-period accounting performance have engaged in more income-increasing earnings management. Hence, pricing regulations may have induced IPO firms to inflate pricing-period earnings and affect the post-IPO performance negatively. On the other hand, penalty regulations have deterred IPO firms from making overoptimistic earnings forecast and therefore have a positive impact on the behavior of IPO firms.     

The Role of Insider Influence in Mutual-to-Stock Conversions

Using a sample of 347 demutualizing thrifts from 1991 to 2004, we show that the level of inside participation is not a traditional signal of firm performance. We conclude that unanticipated inside participation reflects the incentives of insiders to reduce the size of the offer to influence the level of expected initial public offer (IPO) returns. We find unanticipated inside participation is related to lower offer size and higher initial returns, but we do not find a relationship between inside participation and post-IPO performance.