Early wealth effects of regional ADRs

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to determine what types of short-term wealth effects accrued to European and Latin American American Depository Receipt (ADR) investors and whether these were affected by the type of issue (initial public offerings (IPO) vs seasoned equity offerings (SEO)) or the date of issue (1990s vs 2000s). Design/methodology/approach - – Standard ADR and IPO excess return methodology is utilized to compute and test excess returns against a US investment benchmark. This methodology is used in many ADR and IPO studies. Findings - – European SEOs listed in the 2000s did better than those listed in the 1990s. The results for European IPOs were the opposite. Latin American SEOs did better relative to the US market index for issues listed in the 1990s as compared to those listed in the 2000s. Once again the results for Latin American IPOs were the opposite. Originality/value - – This study differs from previous studies by emphasizing differences in short-term return behaviour for Latin American and European ADRs listed during a decade of US market stability (the 1990s) vs those listed in the 2000s when the US stock market encountered times of extreme return volatility. These timing differences affect not only the returns of all the ADRs but also show how ADR IPOs and SEOs tend to have opposite return behaviour based on timing. These return differences are important because the major benefits of portfolio diversification are achieved when asset returns are less correlated with each other.