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Abstract:
The bookbuilding procedure for selling initial public offerings (IPO) to investors has captured significant market share from auction alternatives in recent years, despite the significantly lower costs related to the auction mechanism in terms of direct fees and initial underpricing. This article shows that in the French market, where the frequency of bookbuilding and auctions was approximately equal in the 1990s, the ostensible advantages to the issuer using bookbuilding were advertising-related benefits. Specifically, we find that book-built issues were more likely to be followed and positively recommended by the lead underwriters, as well as to receive "booster shots" after issuance if the shares had fallen. Even nonunderwriters' analysts appear to promote book-built issues more but only as a way of currying favor with the IPO underwriter for allocations of future deals. Yet we do not observe valuation or post-IPO return differentials that suggest these types of promotion have any value to the issuing firm. We conclude that underwriters using the bookbuilding procedure have convinced issuers of the questionable value of the advertising and promotion of their shares.

IPO, book-building, auctions

Abstract:
A number of firms in the United Kingdom first list without issuing equity and then issue equity shortly thereafter. We argue that this two-stage offering strategy is less costly than an IPO because trading reduces the valuation uncertainty of these firms before they issue equity. We find that initial return is 10% to 30% lower for these firms than for comparable IPOs, and we provide evidence that the market in the firm's shares lowers financing costs. We also show that these firms time the market both when they list and when they issue equity.

Abstract:
We study the extent to which investor sentiment matters for aggregate equity issuance activity. We focus on firms that are susceptible to investor sentiment and for which accurate measures of economic fundamentals are available. While sentiment on its own matters for equity issuance, it matters relatively little once we control for accurately measured fundamentals. Collectively, proxies for sentiment explain roughly 10 percentage points of the time-series variation of equity issuance beyond the roughly 40 percent explained by fundamentals. We conclude that investor sentiment does not seem to matter very much for aggregate equity issuance activity.

Initial public offerings, hot issue markets, fundamentals, investor sentiment

Abstract:
Between 1999 and 2007, WR Hambrecht completed 19 IPOs in the U.S. using an auction mechanism. We analyze investor behavior and mechanism performance in these auctioned IPOs using detailed bidding data. The existence of some bids posted at high prices suggests that some investors (mostly retail) try to free-ride on the mechanism. But institutional demand in these auctions is very elastic, suggesting that institutional investors reveal information in the bidding process. Investor participation is largely predictable based on deal size, and demand is dominated by institutions. Flipping is at most as prevalent in auctions as in bookbuilt deals – but unlike in bookbuilding, investors in auctions do not flip their shares more in “hot” deals. Finally, we find that institutional investors, who provide more information, are rewarded by obtaining a larger share of the deals that have higher 10-day underpricing. Our results therefore suggest that auctioned IPOs can be an effective alternative to traditional bookbuilding.

Initial public offerings, investment banking, auctions

Abstract:
Between 1999 and 2007, WR Hambrecht has completed 19 IPOs in the U.S. using an auction mechanism. We analyze investor behavior and mechanism performance in these auctioned IPOs using detailed bidding data. The existence of some bids posted at high prices suggests that some investors (mostly retail) try to free-ride on the mechanism. But institutional demand in these auctions is very elastic, suggesting that institutional investors reveal information in the bidding process. Investor participation is largely predictable based on deal size, and demand is dominated by institutions. Flipping is equally prevalent in auctions as in bookbuilt deals - but unlike in bookbuilding, investors in auctions tend to flip their shares more in cold deals. Finally, we find that institutional investors, who provide more information, are rewarded by obtaining a larger share of the deals that have higher initial returns. Our results therefore suggest that auctioned IPOs could be an effective alternative to traditional bookbuilding.

Initial public offerings, investment banking, auctions

Abstract:
This paper investigates whether a bank can win IPO mandates by issuing flattering analyst recommendations to recent IPOs. We find that security analysts increase their bank's chance of comanaging an IPO when they issue generous recommendations to recent IPOs managed by the IPO's lead manager. However, this result holds only for prestigious banks. Less prestigious banks, whose recommendations are less influential, do not obtain such rewards from lead managers. We also find that security analysts increase their bank's chance of managing future IPOs when they issue generous recommendations to recent IPOs managed by their own bank. This result, however, holds only for non-prestigious banks. These banks, which are not the issuers' first choice, appear to advertize their services by issuing generous analyst coverage to their recent offerings.

Initial public offerings, underwriting syndicates, analyst behavior

Abstract:
This paper looks at the effect of shareholder horizon on corporate behavior. In perfect capital markets, corporate behavior should be insensitive to shareholder horizon, but when investment opportunities are not well valued by the market, shareholder horizon matters. We first present a simple framework to show that shareholder horizon should be looked at in conjunction with stock misvaluation. We build on this insight to design a novel empirical strategy to assess the impact of investor short-termism. Consistent with our simple framework, we find that, when a firm is undervalued, the presence of more short-term investors is associated with bigger shareholder payout, less equity issue, less external financing, and as a result, less investment and less R&D spending. Under our interpretation, long-term investors are not more involved in corporate governance, yet, they affect corporate policy.

Investor Horizon, Payouts, Financing, Investment

Abstract:
The book-building procedure for selling initial public offerings to investors has captured significant market share from auction alternatives in recent years, despite significantly lower costs in both direct fees and initial underpricing when using the auction mechanism. This Paper shows that in the French market, where the frequency of book-building and auctions was about equal in the 1990s, the ostensible advantages to the issuer using book-building were advertising-related quid pro quo benefits. Specifically, we find that book-built issues were more likely to be followed and positively recommended by the lead underwriters and were also more likely to receive 'booster shots' post-issuance if the shares had fallen. Even non-underwriters' analysts appear to promote book-built issues more, but only when their underwriters stood to gain from acquiring shares in future issues from the recommended firm's lead underwriter. Book-built issues also appeared to garner more press in general (but only after they had chosen book-building, not before). Yet, we do not observe valuation or return differentials to suggest these types of promotion have any value to the issuing firm. We conclude that underwriters using the book-building procedure have convinced issuers of the questionable value of advertising and promotion of their shares.

IPOs, book-building, auctions

Abstract:
Between 1999 and 2007, WR Hambrecht completed 19 IPOs in the U.S. using an auction mechanism. We analyze investor behavior and mechanism performance in these auctioned IPOs using detailed bidding data. The existence of some bids posted at high prices suggests that some investors (mostly retail) try to free-ride on the mechanism. But institutional demand in these auctions is very elastic, suggesting that institutional investors reveal information in the bidding process. Investor participation is largely predictable based on deal size, and demand is dominated by institutions. Flipping is equally prevalent in auctions as in bookbuilt deals – but unlike in bookbuilding, investors in auctions tend to flip their shares more in cold deals. Finally, we find that institutional investors, who provide more information, are rewarded by obtaining a larger share of the deals that have higher 10-day underpricing. Our results therefore suggest that auctioned IPOs could be an effective alternative to traditional bookbuilding.

initial public offerings, investment banking, auctions

Abstract:
This paper explores the impact of investor sentiment on the pricing and aftermarket behavior of IPOs. Using a model in which the aftermarket price of IPO shares depends on the information about the intrinsic value of the company and investor sentiment, I show that IPOs can be overpriced, and still exhibit positive initial return.

The predictions of the model are supported by a sample of recent French offerings, in which a fraction of the shares was reserved for individual investors. Individual investors' demand is positively related to market conditions. Moreover, large individual investors' demand leads to high IPO prices, large initial returns, and poor long-run performance.