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Using social network analysis, we examine China's equity underwriting network in the context of initial public offerings (IPOs), and we show that network centrality significantly enhances underwriter performance as measured by IPO outcomes. Among others, network centrality is positively associated with institutional participation and long-run performance. We further find that political connections contribute to the centrality of underwriters, as politically connected underwriters are not only highly connected, but also tied to well-connected peers. Our findings, which are robust to potential endogeneity bias, underscore the strategic importance of underwriter peer networks in the Chinese IPO process.

Using IPO and SEO data from the Indian capital market, we examine whether group-affiliated firms are able to time their equity issuance relative to stand-alone firms. Group-affiliated firms have access to internal capital markets, which, we argue should allow these firms to raise external capital at an opportune time. Using both direct and indirect measures of market timing, the main finding of our paper is that there are significant difference in how group-affiliated and stand-alone firms raise capital through IPOs and SEOs. We find that stand-alone firms raise more capital and time their IPO offerings whereas group-affiliated firms raise more capital and time their SEO offerings. Consistent with the notion of market timing, we find that the long run underperformance is pronounced for stand-alone IPO and group-affiliated SEO offerings.

Using insights from prosecuted cases, we present compelling evidence of large-trade based manipulation in a sizeable number of Indian IPOs that, in all likelihood escaped enforcement actions. Consistent with the pump-and-dump scheme these IPOs exhibit abnormally high volume of large trades, a significant fraction of which originates from a syndicate of traders present in the prosecuted IPOs. More importantly, stock price in the manipulated IPOs rises initially on account of artificial trades, but then declines significantly as the manipulators exit the market. Interestingly, not all attempts at manipulation are entirely successful as stock price in some of the manipulated IPOs crash on the first day of listing.

This paper examines the role of multiple lead underwriters (MLUs) in pricing initial public offerings (IPOs) by considering certification and market power hypotheses. Consistent with the notion that MLUs provide certification to the issue, we find that IPOs backed by MLUs price the offer closer to the intrinsic value of the firm than firms backed by single lead underwriters. Our results also indicate that IPOs led by MLUs experience lower initial return, lower variability of initial returns and better long-run performance. The results are robust to self-selection and omitted variable biases. MLU led offerings also exhibit a lower risk of withdrawal and are more likely to conduct a larger secondary equity offering.

The regulatory provisions in India ensure that IPO investors are able to observe the participation levels of other subscribers prior to their own subscription decisions. This should reduce the information asymmetry between the foreign institutional (FIIs) and domestic institutional investors (DIIs). We argue that because of this setting we should observe less difference in their investment patterns and performance. Our results, however, show that (a) FIIs subscribe to IPOs more aggressively than DIIs; (b) DIIs have better IPO selection ability than FIIs; and (c) in the post-listing period, FIIs reduce their IPO holdings more extensively than DIIs. FIIs reduce their post-listing holdings especially in firms that are smaller, younger, have higher stock volatility while increasing on stocks with higher returns, indicating that FIIs chase hot markets. Overall, in spite of transparency-enhancing regulations, the investment patterns of FIIs and DIIs differ significantly.

Using a regime change setting, this paper examines whether investors flip less in bookbuilding than in auction initial public offerings (IPOs). Based on bookbuilding theory, we posit that the ability to control allocation flexibility in the bookbuilding mechanism should enable underwriters to avoid flippers and target long-term investors. Consistent with this prediction, we find that both frequent and non-frequent investors flip significantly less in bookbuilding IPOs. We also find that the influence of underwriter reputation is stronger in the bookbuilding regime, with frequent investors flipping considerably less in IPOs that are managed by high reputation underwriters in bookbuilding IPOs compared to auction IPOs. The results highlight the benefits of allocation discretion, which allows underwriters to influence investors' behavior as well as use non-bid information in the IPO process. Finally, we examine the implications of flipping and find that although flipping increases liquidity, it contributes to stock price volatility and causes downward pressure on the stock price.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of mandatory regulatory provisions on board structure and the influence of such board structure on institutional holdings. Design/methodology/approach The study uses unique hand-collected data set of Indian IPOs during the 2004-2012 period after the corporate governance reforms with the introduction of clause 49 in the listing agreements in 2001. Using OLS regression, the paper empirically analyses the determinants of board size and board independence at the time of the IPOs and the influence of such a board structure on shareholdings by domestic and foreign institutional investors. Findings The authors find that complying with mandatory regulatory provisions does not impede firms from structuring their boards to reflect the firms’ advising and monitoring needs. The authors also find that complying with provisions have positive implication for the firm, as firms with greater board independence appear to attract more foreign institutional investors. Originality/value To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first study to examine the issue in a regime where regulation mandates the composition of the board of directors. The paper also extends the literature on institutional holdings by providing evidence on the impact of board structure on institutional ownership at a critical time in a firm’s life cycle when concerns for endogeneity for empirical investigations are weaker.

Using data from the unique setting of Indian IPOs, this study examines the underwriter–investor relationship based on underwriter reputation. We find that high reputation and low reputation underwriters have strong relationships with different sets of investors. While large institutional investors participate early in IPOs managed by high reputation underwriters, high net worth investors appear to do the same in IPOs managed by low reputation underwriters. The varying nature of relationships with investors also has important consequences for IPO pricing. Our analysis of the setting of the offer price shows that reputation matters greatly for high reputation underwriters. Low reputation underwriters, on the other hand, appear to price aggressively and set high offer prices even when institutional participation is negligible.

We use textual analysis techniques to examine how the size of IPO lead underwriting syndicate influences the information production decisions of underwriters. Our results show that IPO prospectuses produced by multiple lead underwriters (MLUs) contain more informative content and use more readable language. These findings imply that MLUs produce and discloses more pricing information during the pre-filing period. We also find that MLUs produce less information during bookbuilding and provide less support for partial adjustment phenomenon. Together, our results suggest that MLUs can substitute the costly bookbuilding with the pre-filing information services.

This paper investigates the investment decision of IPO investors when equipped with information on both the quality of the firm and the market sentiment. The unique regulatory provisions allow IPO investors in India to have access to the independent assessment of firm quality and information on the participation of other investors, including institutional investors. At the same time, an active grey market reveals market sentiment before the application for subscription is closed. The results, which are robust to alternative model specifications, suggest that the institutional investors’ decision is guided almost exclusively by firm quality while the retail investors’ decision to participate in IPOs is strongly influenced by the market sentiment even in a highly transparent market where both sets of information are freely available.

The study utilizes a unique set of IPOs data in Thailand post Asian Financial crises to identify the relationship between initial market adjusted underpricing and the ownership concentration. We find that a weak but a negative relationship exists between the two and therefore to certain extent refuting the signaling hypothesis of high ownership and high underpricing. We employ a rank correlation to identify the association between the two variables. A regression model using the widely used proxies of information asymmetry model fails to up hold the information asymmetry model in the context of Thai IPOs.