This paper uses clinical evidence to show how the German system of corporate control and governance is both more active and more hostile than has previously been suggested. It provides a complete breakdown of ownership and takeover defence patterns in German listed companies and finds highly...

Using a sample of both U.S. and international IPOs we find evidence of the following: IPO allocation policies favor institutional investors both in the U.S. and worldwide. Constraints on the discretion bankers exercise in the allocation of IPO shares reduce institutional allocations. Constraints...

Non-U.S. firms frequently pay a substantial premium to have a U.S. bank lead their initial public offering of equity, even when the issuing firm is not seeking a listing on a U.S. exchange. We provide evidence that this decision reflects an expectation that U.S. banks deliver a higher quality...

IPO initial returns reached astronomical levels during 1999-2000. We show that the regime shift in initial returns and other elements of pricing behavior can be at least partially accounted for by a variety of marked changes in pre-IPO ownership structure and insider selling behavior over the...

In recent years there has been an enormous amount of research into the way companies raise finance from stock markets. There are many reasons for this interest in 'initial public offerings' (IPOs): DT the capital-raising function of stock markets is particularly important in financing firms and...

We show that information flows between investment banks and their clients affect relationships and that shocks to these flows affect corporate investment. Firms avoid sharing investment banks in their industry, but only when they engage in product market competition. This suggests that concerns...

Shareholder agreements govern the relations among shareholders in privately held firms, such as joint ventures and venture capital-backed companies. We provide an economic explanation for key clauses in such agreements—namely, put and call options, tag-along and drag-along rights, demand and...

Lower underpricing amongst venture-backed IPOs has been attributed to a certification role for venture capitalists. We argue that differences in underpricing per se are uninformative and possibly misleading when not controlling for differences in entrepreneurs` incentives to control...

Can managers influence the liquidity of their firms' shares? We use plausibly exogenous variation in the supply of public information to show that firms seek to actively shape their information environments by voluntarily disclosing more information than is mandated by market regulations and...

Shareholder agreements govern the relations among shareholders in privately held firms, such as joint ventures and venture capital-backed companies. We provide an economic explanation for key clauses in such agreements—namely, put and call options, tag-along and drag-along rights, demand and...