HIGH-TECH IPOS: A TALE OF TWO CONTINENTS

The typical price behavior of an initial public offering (IPO), consisting of a price upsurge on the first trading day followed by subpar performance in the (longer-run) after-market, is one of the most intriguing puzzles in corporate finance. This study focuses on high-tech IPOs in Europe and the U.S. over the period 1998–2001, both to compare the European and U.S. IPO markets and to determine how the price behavior of high-tech IPOs compares to that of IPOs in general. Average initial-day returns were 39% and 64% for the European and U.S. samples, respectively. The median returns were significantly lower, however, indicating that the sample averages are affected by a small group of exceptionally strong performers. But, for the first full year of trading, the median market-adjusted returns were negative for both samples. Not surprisingly, this substandard aftermarket performance was most apparent in companies that failed to generate operating profits.
As with IPOs in general, high-tech IPOs showed higher initial-day returns in "hot" markets than in "cold." Strong first-day performance was a good predictor of IPO volume in the high-tech market, with strong first-day returns triggering a flood of IPOs in subsequent months. Overall, then, the authors' study concludes that the price behavior of high-tech IPOs provides an exaggerated version of the general tendency of IPOs to be underpriced initially but underperform over the longer term.     

The pricing of U.S. IPOs by seasoned foreign firms

We examine the pricing of U.S. initial public offerings (IPOs) by foreign firms that are already seasoned in their domestic countries. Presumably, these equity offers have less downside risk for investors than typical IPOs since domestic share prices can be used to help establish a preoffer value for the firm's equity. In spite of the presumed diminished downside risk, we find that offers by firms from countries that impose foreign ownership restrictions and capital controls are on average underpriced, experiencing an average first-day return in the United States of 12.7%. This result stems in part from the underwriter's failure to price the issue to fully reflect the postoffer premium that often arises for the U.S. shares. In contrast, offers by firms from countries without ownership restrictions have an average first-day return of 0.0%.     

Institutional affiliation and the role of venture capital: Evidence from initial public offerings in Japan

The presence of venture capital in the ownership structure of U.S. firms going public has been associated with both improved long-term performance and superior “certification” at the time of the initial public offerings (IPOs). Many of the major venture capital firms in Japan are subsidiaries of securities firms that may face a conflict of interest when underwriting the venture capital-backed issue. In Japan, we find the long-run performance of venture capital-backed IPOs to be no better than that of other IPOs, with the exception of firms backed by foreign-owned or independent venture capitalists. When venture capital holdings are broken down by their institutional affiliation, we find that firms with venture backing from securities company subsidiaries do not perform significantly worse over a 3-year time horizon than other IPOs. On the other hand, we find that IPOs in which the lead venture capitalist is also the lead underwriter have higher first-day returns than other venture capital-backed IPOs. The latter result suggests that conflicts of interest influence the initial pricing, but not the long-term performance, of IPOs in Japan.     

Underpricing of homecoming A-share IPOs by Chinese firms already listed abroad

Many Chinese firms have pursued overseas listings in Hong Kong or US without being first listed in China’s domestic market, mainly due to the regulatory constraints imposed by the Chinese government. Some of them eventually returned to mainland China through an A-share offering to Chinese investors. This unique feature of cross-listed Chinese stocks offers an experiment field to test some of the conventional theories of initial public offerings (IPOs) underpricing. Homebound IPOs are expected to be less underpriced than domestic only IPOs that are not cross-listed because being already listed in a developed market can mitigate the information asymmetry and issue uncertainty associated with their A-share IPOs. Nevertheless, we find that homecoming A-share IPOs are still substantially underpriced, with an average market adjusted first-day return of 96.53 %. Furthermore, their first-day returns are not significantly different from those of domestic only IPOs once firm- and offer-characteristics are controlled. This is in sharp contrast to the lukewarm aftermarket performance experienced in their overseas debuts. The mean market adjusted first-day return is merely 5.35 % in their US ADR offerings and 11.63 % in their Hong Kong H-share IPOs. Overall, our results suggest the importance of local market structures and norms as influential factors of IPO underpricing.     

Underwriter learning about unfamiliar firms: Evidence from the history of biotech IPOS

This study examines the ability of underwriters to properly value unfamiliar firms prior to issuance. I use a sample of IPOs in biotechnology, a relatively new but thriving industry. The first American biotech IPO was in 1980. Through the end of 2004, almost 500 biotech IPOs have appeared in the public market. I find that biotechnology differs from other industries in the attributes of individual firms valued by the market. In particular, R&D and the quality of human capital (e.g., star scientists on the staff) are much more important for biotech valuations. I find also that underwriters appeared not to appreciate this distinction for early biotech IPOs; in those cases, first-day market returns were predictable by firm attributes not used by underwriters to establish IPO issue prices. I also find that underwriters have learned over time, albeit slowly. Over the 20+ years of biotech history, IPO issue prices have become more dependent on firm attributes unique to biotechs while first-day market returns have become less predictable.     

An investigation of the short-term performance of the Canadian IPO market.

This article explores the short-term return performance of the Canadian initial public offering (IPO) market. Historically, the Canadian IPO market has shown to be one of the least underpriced markets in the world. This paper uses recent IPOs from 2010 to 2017, and the results confirm that the Canadian IPO market remains one of the least underpriced IPO markets in the world. The mean (median) first-day returns show that Canadian IPOs are marginally underpricing at only 1.45% (0.24%) during the sample period. Additional short-run return measures indicate that Canadian IPOs underperform the market in their 1-month, 6-month, and 12-month holding periods. This research also contributes to the existing IPO literature by showing that restricted voting share offerings tend to be more underpriced and perform poorly over the short-term.     

IPO flipping in Australia: cross-sectional explanations

We access electronic share settlement records for each subscriber and aftermarket investor in 419 Australian IPOs to investigate whether initial subscribers flip their allocations, and we relate this flipping behaviour to issuer, shareholder, underwriter and market characteristics. We find that the main determinants are underpricing (consistent with the disposition effect, i.e., a tendency to realise gains before losses), whether the IPO market is “hot” (a proxy for the representativeness heuristic) and ex ante risk characteristics. When flipping is analysed separately for underpriced and overpriced IPOs we find that the most overpriced IPOs are flipped more than the less overpriced ones, a result which contrasts the disposition effect. This result is due to the action of institutional, rather than individual, investors. We also relate flipping activity to the firm's long-run return, and find that the flipping behaviour of large (informed) investors is unrelated to long-run returns, while uninformed investors consistently flip more of the IPOs that have better long-run returns.     

THE MARKET'S PRICING OF DEBT IPOs

Based on the authors' recent study published in the Journal of Financial Economics , this article summarizes new evidence on the first-day and aftermarket price performance of a firm's first public offer of bonds after its equity IPO. Unlike equity IPOs, such bond IPOs are not underpriced on average. However, bonds that are more equity-like (junk bonds) are underpriced at the initial offer whereas high-grade debt is actually overpriced. This finding supports the view that riskier debt issues have a larger equity component and, as a consequence, a higher degree of information asymmetry.
The authors' study also showed that less prestigious underwriters are associated with more underpriced offers, and that the issuer's stock market listing plays an important role in determining the first-day price performance of bond IPOs. The degree of underpricing is lower for bonds issued by firms whose equity is listed on NYSE/AMEX than for bonds issued by firms listed on Nasdaq. Finally, the aftermarket performance for the full sample and various subsamples is consistent with bond market efficiency in the sense that, once prices adjust after the first day of trading, there are no clearly exploitable opportunities for excess returns.     

Systematic risk,the tradeoff of leverage and IPO first-day returns

In this paper, we investigate IPO first-day returns in French market. Our focus is to assess the relationship between equity risk, corporate leverage and IPO initial returns. Based on data of 254 French IPOs, traded on Euronext/Alternext markets over the period 2006 and 2016, we find that estimated beta and idiosyncratic volatility are strongly and negatively related to book and market net gearing ratios. We also find that the interaction terms between equity risk measures and corporate leverage ratios are inversely related to IPO first-day returns. In addition, we highlight that industry and macroeconomic environment variables are significant predictors of equity initial returns. Robustness check of our findings indicates less relevant results for corporate leverage when it is estimated as independent variable.

     

投资银行-机构投资者关系、“捧场”与IPO中的利益问题

投资银行是直接融资过程中最重要的中介机构,作为融资产品的“卖方”代表,其核心竞争力源于它所构建的投资者关系网络,但现有文献对于投行-投资者关系在证券发行中的作用还缺乏系统的实证研究。本文利用机构投资者在中国IPO新股发行中的完整询价记录,基于报价参与和报价水平两个维度提出了一种新的动态关系强度测算方法,并由此细致刻画了投行-机构关系对股票发行、定价的作用机制。结果发现:(1)投行可以驱动关系机构主动认购其承销的IPO新股,并引导关系机构给出与投行估值水平保持一致的高位报价,进而有效缓解了IPO拍卖制下的“投资者参与不确定性问题”。(2)关系机构的捧场报价显著提高了股票发行价格、增加了投行的承销收入;但是当新股交易价格在长期内逐渐向其内在价值水平收敛时,受到关系机构捧场支持越多的IPO新股,其长期回报率相对越低。(3)投行与机构的关系在本质上是互惠的,一旦投行被赋予新股分配权力,它明显倾向于将新股抑价发行带来的巨大利益分配给在前期捧场的关系机构,二者的关系越强,机构报价被认定为“有效报价”的概率越高,而一旦被认定为有效报价,关系机构的新股需求更是将被优先满足。     

IPOs in New Zealand: Nonfinancial disclosures,valuation, and short-term performance

This study examines the effects of offer characteristics and prospectus disclosures of nonfinancial information on the valuation at the offer and the short-term performance of NZX-listed IPOs over the period 1991–2017. Compared with sector/industry–matched peers, the median IPO is overvalued by 39% at the offer, and more overvalued IPOs do not achieve higher cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) within the first year post-listing. IPOs purchased at the offer yield first-day average abnormal return of 3.4%–3.8% and one-year average CARs of 3.54%–6.21%. Determinants of valuation and short-term performance include the time gap between prospectus registration and offer open, float rate, investment bank reputation, and prospectus disclosures of an employee share ownership plan or a people-focused culture.     

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.     

Underpricing of Chinese A-share IPOs and short-run underperformance under the approval system from 2001 to 2005

This paper analyses underpricing and short-run underperformance of the Chinese A-share IPOs from Mar, 2001 to 2005 when the new approval system was adopted. We find that the average market adjusted first-day return is 93.49% in this period, a more reasonable level when compared with those in previous periods in China. The findings show that underpricing in this period is significantly affected by offering mechanisms and inequality of demand and supply of IPOs. The effect of shareholder's structure is tested in the model and state-owned share's weight is shown to increase the degree of underpricing. Meanwhile, this paper analyses IPOs' short-run underpricing on their 10th, 20th, 30th trading days. It is found that most IPOs' underpricing shrinks and the degree of shrinking degrees is different across the groups categorized by offering mechanisms. Further, the underperformance of IPOs which are underwritten by more prestigious underwriters shows a comparatively lower range and is less severe in the short-run.     

Are IPO Allocations for Sale? Evidence from Mutual Funds

Combining data on brokerage commissions that mutual fund families paid for trade execution between 1996 and 1999 with data on mutual fund holdings of initial public offerings (IPOs), I document a robust, positive correlation between commissions paid to lead underwriters and reported holdings of the IPOs they underwrite. Moreover, I find that the correlation is limited to IPOs with nonnegative first‐day returns and strongest for IPOs that occur shortly before mutual funds report their holdings, when the noise introduced by flipping is smallest. Overall, the evidence suggests that business relationships with lead underwriters increase investor access to underpriced IPOs.     

Local corporate misconduct and local initial public offerings

This paper investigates the cost of going public through initial public offerings (IPOs) for firms located in regions with significant fraud density. We find that companies in regions with a high proportion of nearby firms that have committed corporate misconduct have more pronounced underpricing, experience higher post-IPO stock return volatility, and are more likely to withdraw their offerings. Overall, our results show that local corporate misconduct is associated with the pricing of IPOs, and the breach of trust is related to costly IPOs for newcomers.     

影响企业短期融资券发行定价的因素

本文运用偏相关分析、多元回归方法等对企业短期融资券发行定价的各种影响因素进行分析,试图找出我国承销商和发行人在确定发行价格时应考虑的主要因素,以及这些因素对发行定价的影响程度,从而为首次公开发行定价真正走向市场化提供指导.研究结果表明,企业所有制性质、央行票据发行利率、行业特征、发行规模等因素显著影响发行价格,流动性风险是发行市场考虑的重要因素,而发行主体的偿债能力、主承销商声誉等级等对发行价格的影响不显著.     

Earnings and Equity Valuation in the Biotech Industry: Theory and Evidence

We examine how the price-earnings relation varies with the uncertainty about and the quality of a firm's investments. We develop a real option valuation framework to capture investment and abandonment options in the research-intensive biotechnology industry. We hypothesize that the price-earnings relation will be V-shaped and change over the firm 's life cycle. We also show how nonfinancial information affects the pricing of earnings. Our empirical findings are based on a sample of 301 biotechnology firms that made IPOs between 1980 and 2000, and are generally consistent with our predictions.     

IPO first‐day returns: Skewness preference,investor sentiment and uncertainty underlying factors

In this paper, we investigate the initial public offering (IPO) first-day returns. Our focus is to examine the irrational component of the agent behavior towards IPO lotteries. Based on 234 French IPOs performed between 2002 and 2012, we find that IPOs with high initial returns have higher idiosyncratic skewness, turnover and momentum. This finding provides empirical evidence for investors' preference for stocks with lottery-like features and investor sentiment. In addition, we show that the skewness preference and the investor sentiment effect are stronger during periods of favorable market conditions. Our results are robust to the integration of uncertainty underlying factors.     

累计投标询价机制下的IPOs定价及实证分析

通过回顾累计投标询价机制下IPOs定价的相关文献,并对IPOs发行过程中发行公司与机构投资者、中小投资者三方在利益最大化之间进行博弈,求解发行公司的IPOs策略及价格确定过程,在此基础上,进行实证分析。结果表明:我国在累计投标询价机制下发行股票的发行价格除了反映了发行公司股票的内在价值外,还反应了二级市场实际供求关系等外部综合影响因素。