Empirical Tests of the Signaling and Monitoring Hypotheses for Initial Public Offerings

The research questions investigated are: 1. Are the expected post-issue fractional holdings of the directors and officers, venture capitalists and institutions signals of firm value? 2. Are the expected post-issue fractional holdings of the directors and officers, venture capitalists and institutions signals of underpricing? and 3. Are the directors and officers, venture capitalists and institutions monitors of IPO investments? The signaling theory developed by Grinblatt and Hwang (1989) (GH) and the monitoring theory for IPO investments have been used to develop the hypotheses for this dissertation. Four factors make my methodology unique. These factors are: 1. I apply and test the GH IPO signaling model over a unique data set collected from the IPO prospectuses, proxy statements and annual reports; 2. I disaggregate the expected post-issue holdings of the different groups of pre-issue blockholders and insiders and hypothesizes that these individual groups represents signals of firm value and underpricing; 3. I hypothesize that these groups, in aggregate and separately, monitor IPO investments over the long term; And 4. I develop signaling and monitoring hypotheses to make predictions at the two stages of the IPO. The results show that firm value is positively related to the level of underpricing, at a given variance of the firms cash flows; the level of underpricing is positively related to the holdings of the directors and officers as a group and the aggregate of the directors and officers, VCs and institutions, at given variances of the firm's cash flows; the firm value is not related to the level of underpricing, at a given level of capital outlay and holdings of either the aggregate blockholders, directors and officers, VCs or institutions. For the monitoring hypotheses, the results show that the long-run buy-and-hold-returns are positively related to the investment bank reputation and the gross spread. Also, the results do not support the theories that the holdings of the VCs, institutions and the aggregate holdings of the different groups, represent the level of monitoring. Therefore, these groups do not increase the value of IPO investments over the long-run