illustration of this trend. In order to foster competition, competitive tendering through the use of auctions is now common … using the transparency of auction procedures and the discretionary power of the regulator as two complementary instruments …

from auction alternatives in recent years, despite significantly lower costs in both direct fees and initial underpricing … when using the auction mechanism. This paper shows that in the French market, where the frequency of book-building and … auctions was about equal in the 1990s, the ostensible advantages to the issuer using book-building were advertising …