Structuring the Initial Offering: Who to Sell to and How to Do it
44 Pages Posted: 7 Apr 2004
Date Written: March 2004
Abstract
This paper shows how the owner of a nonpublic firm, who wishes to maximize revenue from the sale of shares, should structure the sale. We develop a unified model of adverse selection in the retail market and mechanism design for information gathering that enables us to determine the optimal amount of information gathering before setting the issue price. We show that the need to induce truthtelling does not, without allocation restrictions, lead to underpricing when bookbuilding is conducted prior to an initial public offering. We obtain a number of new empirical predictions relating the information gathering decision and underpricing to characteristics of the bookbuilding process and issue characteristics such as issue size and uncertainty about share value.
Keywords: Mechanism design, IPOs
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Why Has IPO Underpricing Changed Over Time?
By Tim Loughran and Jay R. Ritter
-
Why Has IPO Underpricing Changed Over Time?
By Tim Loughran and Jay R. Ritter
-
A Review of IPO Activity, Pricing and Allocations
By Jay R. Ritter and Ivo Welch
-
A Review of IPO Activity, Pricing, and Allocations
By Ivo Welch and Jay R. Ritter
-
Why Don't Issuers Get Upset About Leaving Money on the Table in Ipos?
By Tim Loughran and Jay R. Ritter
-
Underpricing and Entrepreneurial Wealth Losses in Ipos: Theory and Evidence
-
Common Stock Offerings Across the Business Cycle: Theory and Evidence
By Hyuk Choe, Ronald W. Masulis, ...
-
IPO Market Cycles: Bubbles or Sequential Learning?
By Michelle Lowry and G. William Schwert
-
IPO Market Cycles: Bubbles or Sequential Learning?
By Michelle Lowry and G. William Schwert