After Market Pricing Performance of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs): Indian IPO Market 2002–2006

Abstract

This paper is motivated by the apparent belief that IPOs are underpriced on the initial listing day and thereafter underperforms compared to the market benchmark. While evaluation of the listing day performance seems straightforward on surface, it actually invokes several complications for the subsequent performance measurement. This paper focuses on the evaluation of price performance of IPOs up to a period of 36 months including the listing day. It also examines the usefulness of IPO characteristics at the time of issue to seek an explanation for the post-issue price performance. The paper presents fresh evidence on IPO performance, i.e., short-run underpricing and long-run underperformance for 92 Indian IPOs issued during the period 2002–2006. It is reported that on an average the Indian IPOs are underpriced to the tune of 46.55 per cent on the listing day (listing day return vis-à-vis issue price) compared to the market index. Another contribution of this paper is the evaluation of the long-run post-issue price performance of Indian IPOs. The long-run performance of IPOs up to a period of 36 months are measured by using the two most promising evaluation techniques, i.e., wealth relative (WR) and buy-and-hold abnormal rate of return (BHAR), both being adjusted with market index, CNX-Nifty. Further, the results evidence that the underperformance is most pronounced during the initial year of trading, i.e., up to 12 months from the listing date followed by over�performance. To get possible explanations for long-run underperformance for Indian IPOs, factors like underpricing rate (listing day return), offer size, leverage at IPO date, ex-ante uncertainty, timing of issue, age of IPO firm, rate of subscription, promoter groups retention, and price-to-book value (as proxy for growth) are considered. Evidence is found, that initial day return, offer size, leverage at IPO date, ex-ante uncertainty, and timing of issue are statistically significant in influencing underperformance. However, there is no evidence favourable to the age of the IPO firm, rate of subscription, promoter group's retention, and price-to-book value impact on the long-run underperformance. The empirical results suggest that the investors who are investing in IPOs through direct subscription are earning a positive market-adjusted return throughout the period of study. But investors who have bought shares on the IPO listing day are earning negative returns up to 12 months from the listing date and expect to earn positive market-adjusted return thereafter. For future research, we suggest the extension of this analysis for additional explanatory variables including issue fundamental characteristics of IPO firms. The scope of the research study could even be improved by extending the time period of study prior to 2002.