When a company sells shares of their business to the public for the first time, it is called an Initial Public Offering, IPO. The IPO is usually conducted by the issuing firm to raise capital for their future growth. Before the IPO the information about the issuing company is often limited and the investment in an IPO is associated with risks. The investors who choose to invest in an IPO are therefore usually compensated with a discount on the shares and often experience a first day positive return. This first day positive return is the definition of underpricing. If the majority of the IPOs are underpriced it should be of interest for an investor to take part of this opportunity and use it as an investment strategy. This thesis investigates if there is a way to predict which IPOs that will generate a positive first day return based on the information in the IPO prospect. / En IPO är det första erbjudandet av företagets aktier till den publika marknaden. En IPO genomförs ofta i samband med att företaget behöver ta in nytt kapital för framtida investeringar. Innan ett företag blir publikt är informationsinsynen begränsad vilket medför en risk för den som vill investera i det initiala erbjudandet. Investerarna som väljer att investera i erbjudandet är ofta kompenserade med en rabatt på aktierna och får då ofta en positiv avkastning på första handelsdagen. Denna initiala avkastning definieras som underprissättningen av erbjudandet. Om en majoritet av börsnoteringarna är underprissatta skulle det vara av stort intresse för investerare att upprepande investera i IPOs och ha detta som investeringsstrategi. Den här uppsatsen undersöker om det går att förutspå vilka IPOs som genererar en positiv avkastning första handelsdagen baserat på den informationen som finns att tillgå i IPO prospektet. / Civilekonom-uppsats

Thesis describes initial public offering on the stock markets. There are mentioned basic phases of this process. In this thesis is named pros & cons of this source of financing. Recommends also other ways how to gain capital for own company business acitivities. Thesis is interested about main conditions for successfull "going public". Initial Public Offering of bonds is described too. Practical part of this thesis is concern IPO in the Czech Republic -- historical data, IPO in the past on Prague Stock Exchange, commentary of well-known stock-market analysts, graphs of stock prices in comparison with the main stock index PX.

This thesis is focused on the issuance of Initial Primary Offerings of shares, with an emphasis on the development of the worldwide IPOs. The first part of the thesis deals with the types of possible sources of financing of the company and the factors that affect their selection. In the next section it shows a characteristic of an IPO from the company's point of view-- a candidate for IPO. In this section are described the motivation and the assumptions of the company undergoing IPO as well as the advantages and disadvantages which the IPO can bring to a company. The following section describes in detail the process of issuing the IPO, it is divided into several main sections and is focused on the Czech market. Further work describes the world development of IPO activity. Here are shown the count and volumes which were carried out in the recent years. Furthermore there is the current status and future trends in the major world markets (the Chinese, the United States and the European). In the final part of the thesis, an analysis of both macro/micro-economic conditions and success of two IPOs, for a Chinese technology company Youku.com Inc. (performed in December 2010) and an American Internet dial-up company Vonage Holding Corp. (implemented in May 2006), is carried out.

In Chinese culture, certain digits are considered lucky and others unlucky. This thesis evaluates how numerical superstition affects financial decision-making in the Chinese A-share IPO market for the period between 2003-2015. Evidence has been found that suggests that numerical superstition influences the initial return on the issuing day of A-share IPOs on the Shanghai exchange. On this exchange newly listed firms with the unlucky number 4 and lucky numbers 6 and 8 in their ticker are initially traded at a discount. A superstition effect for the lucky numbers 6 and 8 dissipates after the first trading day but remains visible after the IPO for the unlucky number 4 and disappears within a month. The Shenzhen exchange showed no effects of numerical superstition on the initial return of the first trading date. The additional regression results indicate that after one month and onwards, having an unlucky number in a ticker has a negative influence on IPO underpricing . After the 3rd and 6th month the lucky number 6 is has a significant negative impact on stock return.

An alternative way to invest on the stock market is to invest in IPO’s. An IPO (InitialPublic Offering) is the first time a company goes public on a stock market, giving outshares to private investors and financial institutions. However, there might be someuncertainties about the share price as it never has been traded on the stock exchangebefore and it could therefore be difficult to determine a reasonable value for the shareprice. Consequently, if the offering price for the investor is significantly lower thanthe “correct valued” price it will generate positive initial return during the first tradingday and this phenomenon is labelled as underpricing, generating more “money on thetable”. Still, previous researches display an underperformance among IPO’s during alonger period after the introduction compared to already established companies withinthe same sector, arguing that investors should sell their shares early after the firsttrading day.The objective of this study is therefore to determine if underpricing exists for IPO’son the Swedish stock exchange and if there are any differentiations amongst sectors,and also to investigate two different Buy-and-Hold strategies. A final objective for thestudy is to determine if the level of underpricing is affected by some explanatoryvariables.With a quantitative study and a longitudinal approach, the results confirm the effect ofunderpricing for IPO’s on the Swedish stock exchange, generating an averageunderpricing of 5.56%. Additionally, this study cannot display any different medianunderpricing between industry sectors. However, it contradicts with theunderperformance phenomenon, indicating an overperformance for longer Buy-and-Hold strategies. Lastly, a regression of explanatory variables trying to explain thelevel of underpricing demonstrates no statistically significant results.

台灣自民國五十一年至九十七年期間歷經了七次的承銷制度改革，配售方式由原先的公開抽籤，歷經競價拍賣與公開抽籤並行，一直到民國九十三年，市場旋以詢價圈購為主流。本文除整理台灣承銷市場於此段時期的制度沿革外，並探究民國八十年至九十七年間，三種制度的施行是否直接地造成期初異常報酬的差異。 透過實證研究發現，初次上市上櫃公司選擇不同的承銷配售方式確實對期初報酬的影響程度確有著顯著的不同，而三種方式的期初報酬以詢價圈購為最高，公開申購次之，競價拍賣為價格發現能力最好的承銷配售方式，其結果與國外文獻相同。但對於制度改革而言，與期初報酬並沒有直接關連性。如民國八十四年就已開放詢價圈購方式，但由於其相關承銷規定背離市場習慣，導致此方式乏人問津，直至民國九十三年做更進一步的放寬限制，方才改變市場的承銷配售方式，由此可知法令變革的宣告並無法直接影響期初價格，而是待法令改革之後，實際落實於市場方會改變市場期初報酬的現象。 / There are seven main reforms of initial public offering methods in Taiwan during 1962 to 2008. From the fixed price method transform to auction, and in 2004 the bookbuilding became the mainstream in the IPO market. In this thesis we not only compile the reform processes in IPO methods in Taiwan capital market but also study the relationship between the initial returns and the IPO methods during 1991 to 2008. Through the empirical studies, there are significant differences between the initial returns and three IPO methods. The auction owns the highest initial return and bookbuilding own the best price discovering mechanism. However the reform announcements could not affect the initial returns directly. The bookbuilding method is allowed in 1995 but due to deviating from custom, no firms applied it in the IPO until the further reform in 2004. The simple reform announcement could not affect the initial returns directly.

Uppsatsen åsyftar att studera hur kontroll genom användandet av en differentierad aktiestruktur påverkar företagsvärdet vid en börsintroduktionsprocess. Tidigare litteratur har undersökt huruvida företag medvetet undervärderas för att få aktien övertecknad i samband med introduktion. De ursprungliga ägarna och företagsledningen kan på så sätt ransonera bland investerare och sprida ägarbasen i bolaget i syfte om att behålla kontroll vilket då sker på bekostnad av företagsvärdet. Om nyttjandet av en differentierad aktiestruktur fungerar som en effektiv kontrollmekanism bör kontrollmotivet för underprissättning försvinna och då bör den underprissättning som uppstår i samband med en börsintroduktion inte vara lika omfattande bland företag som tillämpar differentierad aktiestruktur. I Studien används befintliga teorier om underprissättning som sätts i relation till sambandet mellan bolagsstyrning och underprissättning. Den teoretiska diskussionen åsyftar att generera hypoteser kring kontrollens effekt på företagsvärdet. Genom en kvantitativ metod har en deduktiv ansats tillämpats för testa befintlig teori mot ett empirisk data. Urvalet för undersökningen består av 130 bolag som genomfört en börsintroduktion mellan åren 2011-2015 på den svenska marknaden. 104 bolag har en enkel aktiestruktur och 26 bolag med en differentierad aktiestruktur. Efter att ha testat resultatet utifrån en rad kontrollvariabler genererade från tidigare litteraturen kan studien inte visa på ett signifikant resultat. Det går således inte att påvisa en signifikant lägre logaritmerad underprissättning bland företag som använder differentierad aktiestruktur som en kontrollmekanism. / The purpose of this paper is to study how retaining control using dual class shares affects the value of the company at an IPO process. Previous litterature has examined whether companies deliberately undeprice to try to get an oversubscribed IPO. The original owners and management can then spread the ownership through rationing amongst investors in order to retain control, this at the cost of the company value. If the use of a diffused shareholder structure serves as an effective mechanism to retain control, then underpriced IPOs where the company uses dual class shares and don't have the control motive should be less frequent. The study uses existing theories on the underpricing phenomenon which it compares to theories about retaining control to generate a hypotheses on the connection between underpricing and corporate governance. A deductive approach has been applied to a quantitative method to test the existing theories on empirical data.  The sample of the study is composed of 130 companies that conducted an IPO between 2011-2015 in the Swedish market.  104 companies with single class shares and 26 companies with dual class shares. After testing the result against variables generated from the previous literature this study cannot demonstrate a significantly lower initial logarithmic return among companies using dual class shares.

This thesis comprehensively studies three questions. First of all, I use a unique set of institutional investor bids to examine the impact of personal experience on the behavior of institutional investors in an IPO market. I find that, when deciding to participate in future IPOs, institutions take into account initial returns of past IPOs in which they submitted bids more than IPOs which they merely observed. In addition, initial returns from past IPOs in which institutions’ bids were qualified for share allocation were given more consideration than IPOs for which unqualified bids were submitted. This phenomenon is consistent with reinforcement learning. I also find that institutions do not distinguish the returns that are derived from random events. Furthermore, institutions become more aggressive bidders after experiencing high returns in recent IPOs, conditional on personal participation or being qualified for share allocation in those IPOs. This bidding behavior provides additional evidence of reinforcement learning in IPO markets. Secondly, I merge the dataset of institutional investor bids with post-IPO institutional holdings data to examine whether institutional investors such as fund companies reveal their true valuations through bids in a unique quasi-bookbuilding IPO mechanism. I find that fund companies do truthfully disclose their private information via bids, despite these being without guaranteed compensation. My results contribute to the existing literature by providing new evidence on the information compensation theory and have implications for the IPO mechanism design. Finally, I explore the impact on firm valuation of going public abroad using a sample of 136 Chinese firms that conducted IPOs in the US during the period of 1999-2012. I find that US-listed Chinese firms have higher price multiples and experience less underpricing than their domestic-listed peers. The valuation premium stays consistent when a firm’s characteristics and listing cost are being controlled. These findings are consistent with the theories of foreign listing. Moreover, I find that high-tech Chinese firms with a high growth rate but low profitability are more likely to issue shares in the US, particularly for specific industries such as semiconductors, software and online business services. This industry clustering is interpreted as an incentive to access foreign expertise through listing abroad.

The number of US domiciled initial public offerings (IPOs) has declined since its peak listing year in 1996. The US listing gap has grasped the attention of experts and researchers in the field but there is a lack of agreement among intellectuals regarding the underlying causes. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: 1) to identify and analyze the company characteristics and underlying factors that impact age at time of IPO that has resulted in the US listing gap and 2) to test if these characteristics and factors have fluctuated in impacting company age at IPO over time.

<p>First North är en alternativ handelsplats för aktier, som är till för att små bolag med stor tillväxtspotential ska kunna plocka in externt kapital för att möjliggöra en snabbare expansion än om de varit privatägda aktiebolag. First North ställer dock inte samma formella krav på de listade bolagen som det ställs på företag som är noterade på Stockholmsbörsen då dessa är betydligt mycket större.</p><p>Under år 2007 har de växt fram en stark förtroendekritik mot bolag som är listade på First North. Analytiker och media har framfört stark kritik och menar att bolagen är alldeles för kortsiktiga i sitt tänkande och att de blygsamma krav som ställs på bolagen inte garanterar en trovärdig förvaltning. Kritikerna menar att detta tillsammans med ledningens girighet leder till att företagen vill lura externa intressenter på kapital.</p><p>För att undersöka om de finns någon sanning i dessa påståenden har vi undersökt hur strategierna ser ut för bolag som nyligen listats på First North. Detta har möjliggjorts genom fem stycken intervjuer med listade bolag på First North. Under intervjuernas gång har vi frågat antingen verkställande direktör eller styrelseordförande på hur de ser på strategierna för bolaget.</p><p>Med hjälp av olika teorier om strategier samt institutionell teori har vi försökt söka svar i hur ledningen ser på strategier samt försöka förklara varför de valt de strategier som de gjort.</p><p>De resultat som vi kommit fram till är att den kritik som riktats mot bolag listade på First North är befogad gällande kortsiktighet. Men till vår förvåning är att det inte ledningen som i första hand ska ställas till ansvar för valen av strategier, även om dessa såklart är de som genomfört strategibyten, utan att de är analytikerna själva som bär störst skuld i detta. Mycket beroende för att analytikerna har ett väldigt stort inflytande över vad som anses vara de bästa för bolagen och att de är svårt för ett enskilt nyligen listat bolag att stå emot de externa påtryckningar som de finansiella institutionerna har.</p>