• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.95-120
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• 1990

The underpricing of new shares of a firm that are offered to the public for the first time (initial offerings) is well known and has puzzled financial economists for a long time since it seems at odds with the optimal behavior of the owners of issuing firms. Past attempts by financial economists to explain this phenomenon have not been successful in the sense that the explanations given by them are either inconsistent with the equilibrium theory or implausible. Approaches by such authors as Welch or Allen and Faulhaber are no exceptions. In this paper, we develop a signalling model of capital investment to explain the underpricing phenomenon and also analyze the efficiency of investment. The model focuses on the information asymmetry between the owners of issuing firms and general investors. We consider a firm that has been owned and operated by a single owner and that has a profitable project but has no capital to develop it. The profit from the project depends on the capital invested in the project as well as a profitability parameter. The model also assumes that the financial market is represented by a single investor who maximizes the expected wealth. The owner has superior information as to the value of the firm to investors in the sense that it knows the true value of the parameter while investors have only a probability distribution about the parameter. The owner offers the representative investor a fraction of the ownership of the firm in return for a certain amount of investment in the firm. This offer condition is equivalent to the usual offer condition consisting of the number of issues to sell and the unit price of a share. Thus, the model is a signalling game. Using Kreps' criterion as the solution concept, we obtained an essentially unique separating equilibrium offer condition. Analysis of this separating equilibrium shows that the owner of the firm with high profitability chooses an offer condition that raises an amount of capital that is short of the amount that maximizes the potential profit from the project. It also reveals that the fraction of the ownership of the firm that the representative investor receives from the owner of the highly profitable firm in return for its investment has a value that exceeds the investment. In other words, the initial offering in the model is underpriced when the profitability of the firm is high. The source of underpricing and underinvestment is the signalling activity by the owner of the highly profitable firm who attempts to convince investors that his firm has a highly profitable project by choosing an offer condition that cannot be imitated by the owner of a firm with low profitability. Thus, we obtained two main results. First, underpricing is a result of a signalling activity by the owner of a firm with high profitability when there exists information asymmetry between the owner of the issuing firm and investors. Second, such information asymmetry also leads to underinvestment in a highly profitable project. Those results clearly show the underpricing entails underinvestment and that information asymmetry leads to a social cost as well as a private cost. The above results are quite general in the sense that they are based upon a neoclassical profit function and full rationality of economic agents. We believe that the results of this paper can be used as a basis for further research on the capital investment process. For instance, one can view the results of this paper as a subgame equilibrium in a larger game in which a firm chooses among diverse ways to raise capital. In addition, the method used in this paper can be used in analyzing a wide range of problems arising from information asymmetry that the Korean financial market faces.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.29-60
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• 2003

This study investigates the certification role by the types of venture capitalists in KOSDAQ IPOs. The sample covers 88 venture companies listed on KOSDAQ from January, 1997 to December, 2001. The major results are as follows. Firstly, IPOs of firms backed by New Technology Business Investment Companies are less underpriced than those of firms backed by Small Business Investment Companies. The underpricing difference between two groups is statistically significant. This sheds light on the evidence of the certification role of venture capitalist in KOSDAQ IPOs market. Secondly, our result also attests the certification role by the types of venture capitalists among Small Business Investment Company. IPOs backed by yen拉re capitalists of financial institutions are less underpriced than those backed by venture capitalists of individual wealthy investors. The underpricing difference between two groups is statistically significant. Finally, underpricing of New Technology Business Investment Company-backed IPOs is less than that of Small Business Investment Company-backed IPOs. In addition, we found that the size of underpricing is affected by business history, sub-scription ratio, and total assets prior to registration.

• The Journal of Small Business Innovation
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.41-52
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• 2016

This paper examines the effect of unique underwriter lockup on the initial returns of an initial public offering (IPO) in the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (KOSDAQ). Underwriter lockup induces underwriters to underprice IPOs and stabilize aftermarket prices. The inducement is explored with respects to the mixtures of distributions of the initial returns consistent with underpricing and stabilization. Whether the inducement is meaningful when other factors are controlled is also explored. These explorations provide evidence that underwriter lockup leads to more positive average initial returns in the three aftermarket months.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Studies
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.215-244
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• 1995

The purpose of this paper is to examine the three anomalies phenomena that appear in the initial public offerings(IPOs) market. Of them, the first anomaly is that the new issues are underpriced in the short-run. Secondly, the hot issue market phenomenon appears. Thirdly, in the long-run, the initial public offerings of equities are overpriced. These phenomena have been documented by Inany studies using the us stock market data. In particular, we will investigate whether these three anomalies also appear in the UK new issues market. Firstly, the underpricing phenomenon of initial public offerings in the short-run will be examined. Then the long-run performance of new issues will be examined using cross-sectional and time-series analysis. Finally, we will briefly examine the existence of the hot issue market in the uk IPOs market.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Studies
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.289-312
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• 2000

This paper proposes a pricing model for IPOs which can reconcile the average underpricing phenomenon with the expected wealth maximizing behaviors of market participants. Under the usual informational asymmetry, the optimal offer price for best efforts IPOs is derived as a function of the uncertainty about market's valuation, the expected return on proposed projects and the size of offerings relative to the firm's market value. Depending on these firm-specific characteristics, best efforts IPOs can be underpriced, fairly priced, or overpriced. Introducing the investment banker as an outside information producer, the model is extended to provide empirical implications for pricing and underwriting contract choice decisions which are consistent with the existing empirical evidences. The model predicts that the issuers with greater uncertainty about market's valuation choose best efforts contract over firm commitment contract and the dispersion of initial returns would be greater for best efforts IPOs than for firm commitment IPOs.

• Korean Business Review
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• v.11
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• pp.217-239
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• 1998

The intial public offerings(IPO) issued by going public must be decided duly and seriously. In these sense, this paper reviewed and analysed synthetically the theories and the empirical studies on the IPO. The implications about the empirical studies on the IPO in korea stock exchanges(KSE) are as follows: First, evaluating the IPO's intrinsic value, the issued firm's characteristics(style, scale, age, reevaluation and goodwill etc.) and business environments(industry, economic states, regulations and the relation with government etc.) will be considered. Evaluating the IPO's relative value, the stock price of firms registered in KOSDAQ market will be appreciated. Second, the income smoothing of an IPO listed in KSE accrued in the first and second years. Accordingly if auditors audit the accounting reports of firms to list in KSE by going public, they should more concern to the income smoothing on the accounting reports. Third, the information accuracy of investment banks and the qualities of auditors negatively correlated with the underpricing of an IPO. It is need to promote the information accuracy of investment banks and the qualities of auditors. Regulatory organizations support to promote the information accuracy of investment banks and the qualities of auditors. Forth, the investors interested in the IPO are to recognize the follows. (1) Relations between the underpricing of an IPO and the ratio of public participation, the issue price, the offer size, the insider ownership, the net asset value per share, the price decision system of an IPO. (2) An entrepreneurs who decided to bring his firm public would like to issue the IPO when company's operating conditions are good.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.63-87
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• 2010

This paper empirically examines whether ownership disperses when a venture firm its IPO (initial public offerings). The data for this study were collected from 91 firms that were initially listed on KOSDAQ between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2007. We explored the influence of the underpricing of IPO on the change of large shareholders. The first finding of this investigation is that the number of shareholders of the venture firms who underpriced IPOs still increased after the closing of lockup. This is consistent with the findings of Booth and Chua(1996) and Brennan and Franks(1997). Second, the share of the large stockholders of the venture firms that a venture capital company invested decreased significantly after the end of lockup. Third, the venture businesses with higher ratio of flotation showed a significant decreasing of shareholders after the closing of lockup.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.207-222
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• 1998

본 논문은 1977-91년 사이 런던증권시장에서 일반공모형태로 주식이 매각된 영국의 41개 민영화기업의 최초공모주 가격결정에 대해 실증분석하고 있다. 특히 단기적으로 볼 때 영국 민영화기업의 최초공모주는 일반기업의 최초공모주에 비해 현저히 낮게 평가되어 발행되고 있음이 밝혀졌다. 본 논문에서는 민영화기업의 이러한 저가발행 현상을 정보비소유 투자자에게 최소한의 수익률을 보장해 주어야 한다는 Rock(1986)의 winner's curse 관점에서 설명하여 보았다. 먼저 정보비소유 투자자가 직면할 수 있는 winner's curse의 존재 가능성을 청약경쟁률과 저평가율과의 관계를 고찰함으로써 확인하였다. 즉 청약경쟁률과 초과수익률(할인규모)은 정(正)의 관계를 보였는데 이는 정보소유 투자자가 할인규모가 큰 민영화기업의 최초공모주에 집중적으로 청약하여 정보 비소유 투자자를 구축(驅逐)하여 정보비소유 투자자를 winner's curse에 직면하게 할 가능성이 있다는 Rock의 주장과 일치하는 것으로 보인다. 또한 배정확률을 고려한 가중평균초과수익률이 무위험수익률을 보장해주는지를 조사함으로써 Rock의 주장을 실증적으로 규명하였다. 한편 영국 민영화기업의 최초공모주는 장기적으로도 정(正)의 초과수익률을 시현하고 있는 데 이는 일반기업의 최초공모주의 누적초과수익률은 장기적으로는 부(負)를 시현한다는 Ritter(1991)와 Levis(1993)의 연구결과와는 대조적이다.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.1-22
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• 2022

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of VC investment on the IPO and post-IPO performance of Chinese firms. Design/methodology/approach - By utilizing CSMAR and VentureXpert database, we construct a firm-year panel data covering all listed firms in the Chinese stock market from 2006 to 2018. Findings - First, we find that VC-backed firms are significantly less underpriced than non-VC-backed firms. Our results show that the initial IPO-day return of VC-backed firms is 0.16% lower than that of non-VC-backed firms. Next, we find that VC-backed firms demonstrate significantly worse operating performance than non-VC-backed firms after the IPO. In the next three years following the IPO, VC-backed firms underperform non-VC-backed firms by 0.4% in terms of ROA and by 0.6% in terms of ROE. Research implications or Originality - Our results support the Grandstanding Hypothesis, among several competing hypotheses regarding the effect of VC investment, which suggests that VCs window dress their IPO firms for their early exit at the expense of a poor operating performance of the IPO firms after going public.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.173-188
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• 2020

Purpose - This study examines the determinants of offer price and short-term and long-term performance of small and medium-sized enterprise(SME) IPO stocks listed on the KOSDAQ during the period from July 2007 to December 2016. Design/methodology/approach - The SME IPO samples are classified into three categories of regular listing, technology-based special listing, and listing by merger with special purpose acquisition company(SPAC), whose results are compared each other and compared to the result for the KOSDAQ listing of large firms. Findings - From the point of SME management which attempts to list its company on the KOSDAQ, the listing by merger with SPAC is the most unfavorable, and the underpricing phenomenon of the technology-based special listing is severe in the second place. By contrast, IPO stock investors can earn the largest abnormal return by purchasing the SPAC which succeeds the merger with unlisted firm, and the next abnormal returns are obtained in the order of the IPO stocks of technology-based special listing, regular listing of SMEs, and regular listing of large firms. However, it is interesting to observe that the net buying ratio of individual investors is relatively large for the IPO stocks of regular listing of SMEs and large firms, which exhibit the long-term under-performance. Research implications or Originality - This result implies that the exceptional listing system such as the technology-based special listing or the listing by merger with SPAC cost the SMEs which bypass the complicated procedure of the regular listing.