Independent directors and the long-run performance of IPOs

The Securities and Futures Bureau (SFB) of Taiwan prescribes that firms applying for an initial listing after February 2002 must have at least two seats of independent directors (IDs) on the board. Under the SFB 2002 rules, this paper investigates the effect of such governance reforms in ID requirement on the long-run performance of IPOs. Our results, based on 494 IPOs between 1999 and 2005, find that though IPOs typically underperform in the post-issue period, firms after 2002 perform better than those before 2002. Moreover, firms with IDs also experience less negative stock performance than those without IDs. The results further suggest a positive association between the proportion of IDs on corporate boards and post-listing stock performance for IPOs after 2002. -- corporate governance ; independent directors ; initial public offerings