IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/1211.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Underpricing, Ownership and Control in Initial Public Offerings of Equity Securities in the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Brennan, Michael J
  • Franks, Julian R

Abstract

In this paper we examine how separation of ownership and control evolves as a result of an initial public offering (IPO) and how the underpricing of the issue can be used by insiders to retain control. Using data from a sample of 69 IPOs in the United Kingdom, we argue that IPO underpricing is used to ensure over-subscription and rationing in the share allocation process so as to allow owners to discriminate between applicants for shares and reduce the block size of new shareholdings. We find that of the pre-IPO shareholders in a firm, directors sell only a small fraction of their shares at the time of the offering and in the seven subsequent years; in contrast, holdings of non-directors are virtually eliminated during the same period. As a result, in less than seven years almost two-thirds of the offering company's shares have been sold to outside shareholders, thereby substantially advancing the process of separation of ownership and control. Additional evidence in the paper suggests that rationing in the IPO discriminates against applicants who apply for large blocks, and that the greater the underpricing, the smaller the size of new blocks assembled after the IPO.

Suggested Citation

  • Brennan, Michael J & Franks, Julian R, 1995. "Underpricing, Ownership and Control in Initial Public Offerings of Equity Securities in the UK," CEPR Discussion Papers 1211, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:1211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=1211
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Booth, James R. & Chua, Lena, 1996. "Ownership dispersion, costly information, and IPO underpricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 291-310, June.
    2. Barry, Christopher B, 1989. " Initial Public Offering Underpricing: The Issuer's View--A Comment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(4), pages 1099-1103, September.
    3. Franks, Julian & Mayer, Colin, 1996. "Hostile takeovers and the correction of managerial failure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 163-181, January.
    4. Hanley, Kathleen Weiss, 1993. "The underpricing of initial public offerings and the partial adjustment phenomenon," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 231-250, October.
    5. Mario Levis, 1993. "The Long-Run Performance of Initial Public Offerings: The UK Experience 1980-1988," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 22(1), Spring.
    6. Luigi Zingales, 1995. "Insider Ownership and the Decision to Go Public," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(3), pages 425-448.
    7. Holmstrom, Bengt & Tirole, Jean, 1993. "Market Liquidity and Performance Monitoring," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(4), pages 678-709, August.
    8. Barry, Christopher B. & Muscarella, Chris J. & Peavy, John III & Vetsuypens, Michael R., 1990. "The role of venture capital in the creation of public companies*1: Evidence from the going-public process," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 447-471, October.
    9. Barclay, Michael J. & Holderness, Clifford G. & Pontiff, Jeffrey, 1993. "Private benefits from block ownership and discounts on closed-end funds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 263-291, June.
    10. Chowdhry, Bhagwan & Sherman, Ann, 1996. "International differences in oversubscription and underpricing of IPOs," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 359-381, July.
    11. Benveniste, Lawrence M. & Spindt, Paul A., 1989. "How investment bankers determine the offer price and allocation of new issues," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 343-361.
    12. Levis, Mario, 1990. "The Winner's Curse Problem, Interest Costs and the Underpricing of Initial Public Offerings," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(399), pages 76-89, March.
    13. Ritter, Jay R, 1991. "The Long-run Performance of Initial Public Offerings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 3-27, March.
    14. Rock, Kevin, 1986. "Why new issues are underpriced," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1-2), pages 187-212.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Malik Muhammad Shehr Yar & Attiya Yasmin Javid, 2014. "Liquidity Benefits From Underpricing: Evidence from Initial Public Offerings Listed at Karachi Stock Exchange," PIDE-Working Papers 2014:101, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    2. Agathee, Ushad Subadar & Sannassee, Raja Vinesh & Brooks, Chris, 2012. "The underpricing of IPOs on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 281-303.
    3. van Bommel, Jos & Vermaelen, Theo, 2003. "Post-IPO capital expenditures and market feedback," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 275-305, February.
    4. Menyah, Kojo & Paudyal, Krishna & Inyangete, Charles G., 1995. "Subscriber return, underpricing, and long-term performance of U.K. privatization initial public offers," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 473-495, December.
    5. Pham, Peter K. & Kalev, Petko S. & Steen, Adam B., 2003. "Underpricing, stock allocation, ownership structure and post-listing liquidity of newly listed firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 919-947, May.
    6. Cho, Jaemin & Lee, Jaeho, 2013. "The venture capital certification role in R&D: Evidence from IPO underpricing in Korea," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 83-108.
    7. Jay R. Ritter & Ivo Welch, 2002. "A Review of IPO Activity, Pricing, and Allocations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1795-1828, August.
    8. Mayur, Manas & Kumar, Manoj, 2006. "An Empirical Investigation of Going Public Decision of Indian Companies," MPRA Paper 1801, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Smart, Scott B. & Zutter, Chad J., 2003. "Control as a motivation for underpricing: a comparison of dual and single-class IPOs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 85-110, July.
    10. Riccardo Ferretti & Antonio Meles, 2010. "Underpricing, wealth loss for pre-existing shareholders and the cost of going public: the role of private equity backing in Italian IPOs," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 23-47, September.
    11. Michelle Lowry & G. William Schwert, 2002. "IPO Market Cycles: Bubbles or Sequential Learning?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(3), pages 1171-1200, June.
    12. Belén Gill de Albornoz & Peter F. Pope, 2004. "The Determinants Of The Going Public Decision: Evidence From The U.K," Working Papers. Serie AD 2004-22, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    13. Jeppsson, Hans, 2018. "Initial public offerings, subscription precommitments and venture capital participation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 650-668.
    14. Woei-Chyuan Wong & Seow-Eng Ong & Joseph Ooi, 2013. "Sponsor Backing in Asian REIT IPOs," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 299-320, February.
    15. Pennacchio, Luca, 2013. "The causal effect of venture capital backing on the underpricing of Italian IPOs," MPRA Paper 48695, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Goergen, Marc & Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Koutroumpis, Panagiotis, 2021. "Do multiple credit ratings reduce money left on the table? Evidence from U.S. IPOs," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    17. Fernando, Chitru S. & Krishnamurthy, Srinivasan & Spindt, Paul A., 2004. "Are share price levels informative? Evidence from the ownership, pricing, turnover and performance of IPO firms," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 377-403, October.
    18. Adjasi, Charles K.D. & Osei, Kofi A. & Fiawoyife, Eme U., 2011. "Explaining underpricing of IPOs in frontier markets: Evidence from the Nigeria Stock Exchange," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 255-265, September.
    19. Huyghebaert, Nancy & Van Hulle, Cynthia, 2006. "Structuring the IPO: Empirical evidence on the portions of primary and secondary shares," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 296-320, January.
    20. Lee, Philip J. & Taylor, Stephen L. & Walter, Terry S., 1996. "Australian IPO pricing in the short and long run," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(7), pages 1189-1210, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    IPOs; Private Benefits; Rationing; Underpricing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:1211. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.