| Abstract: | The paper documents short- and long-run performance of initial public offerings on the Warsaw Stock Exchange from 1998 to 2008. The study reveals positive initial market-adjusted returns of 13.95 percent and significant long-term underperformance with mean of -22.62 percent for the three-year buy-and-hold strategy. We introduce ordinary least squares regressions to find determinants of initial returns. Our findings document strong explanatory power of early aftermarket volatility, issuer's size, growth opportunities, and profitability before the offering. Moreover, those variables that can partly explain differences in initial returns can also help to shed light on the long-term underperformance issue. Our results are thus consistent with Miller's (1977) divergence of opinion hypothesis. |
