Do Firms Issue More Equity When Markets Are More Liquid?

Do Firms Issue More Equity When Markets Are More Liquid?

Rene M. Stulz Ohio State University (OSU) – Department of Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Dimitrios Vagias Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) – Rotterdam School of Management (RSM)

Mathijs A. Van Dijk Erasmus University – Rotterdam School of Management; Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM)

July 9, 2013
Fisher College of Business Working Paper No. 2013-03-10
Charles A. Dice Center Working Paper No. 2013-10

Abstract: 
This paper investigates how public equity issuance is related to stock market liquidity. Using quarterly data on IPOs and SEOs in 36 countries over the period 1995-2008, we show that equity issuance is significantly and positively related to contemporaneous and lagged innovations in aggregate local market liquidity. This relation survives the inclusion of proxies for market timing, capital market conditions, growth prospects, asymmetric information, and investor sentiment. Liquidity considerations are as important in explaining equity issuance as market timing considerations. The relation between liquidity and issuance is driven by the quarters with the greatest deterioration in liquidity and is stronger for IPOs than for SEOs. Firms are more likely to carry out private instead of public equity issues and to postpone public equity issues when market liquidity worsens. Overall, we interpret our findings as supportive of the view that market liquidity is an important determinant of equity issuance that is distinct from other determinants examined to date.

About bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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