The Role of Institutional Investors in Corporate Finance

This paper argues that institutional investors may have a positive effect on stock prices. This effect realizes through different mechanisms: institutional investors reduce information asymmetries between firms and (other) investors, contribute to the liquidity of the company’s stock and improve its corporate governance. We conjecture that firms, understanding the benefits of having institutional investors in their ownership, may do efforts to attract them. We apply this idea in the context of IPOs. Using data on Belgian IPOs over the period 1984-2000, we find that firms using the stock market as a financing vehicle and firms less likely to be monitored by corporate blockholders are more likely to pre-allocate shares to institutional investors at IPO-time. Finally, pre-allocating shares to institutional investors is shown to reduce underpricing and enhance post-IPO liquidity.