Purpose -The aim of the paper is to study the long-run under-performance of UK initial public offerings (IPOs) by relating it to the pre-IPO financial performance of the firm as well as the managerial decisions taken before the IPO. Design/methodology/approach - The three-year share returns of...

UK firms going public have a choice between public offers and placings. This choice has important implications in terms of who bears the risk of the issue failing and of its costs. We find that firms with higher "ex ante" uncertainty choose a placing contract. Highly reputable sponsors and...

The short run underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) is one of the best-documented anomalies in finance. The Rock model explains this anomaly in terms of horizontal information asymmery amongst investors. In this paper comprehensive IPO data from the UK main market for the period...