IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jfinan/v61y2006i1p399-436.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Initial Public Offerings: An Analysis of Theory and Practice

Author

Listed:
  • JAMES C. BRAU
  • STANLEY E. FAWCETT

Abstract

We survey 336 chief financial officers (CFOs) to compare practice to theory in the areas of initial public offering (IPO) motivation, timing, underwriter selection, underpricing, signaling, and the decision to remain private. We find the primary motivation for going public is to facilitate acquisitions. CFOs base IPO timing on overall market conditions, are well informed regarding expected underpricing, and feel underpricing compensates investors for taking risk. The most important positive signal is past historical earnings, followed by underwriter certification. CFOs have divergent opinions about the IPO process depending on firm‐specific characteristics. Finally, we find the main reason for remaining private is to preserve decision‐making control and ownership.

Suggested Citation

  • James C. Brau & Stanley E. Fawcett, 2006. "Initial Public Offerings: An Analysis of Theory and Practice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 399-436, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:61:y:2006:i:1:p:399-436
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2006.00840.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2006.00840.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2006.00840.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:bla:jfinan:v:61:y:2006:i:1:p:399-436. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afaaaea.html .

    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.