Do Chinese underwriters grandstand to attract more firms when they are ready to go public?

Sammanfattning: The concept of grandstanding comes from Gompers (1996), in his article, he defined “to grandstand” as “to act or conduct oneself with a view to impressing onlookers”. The idea of grandstanding does not only apply solely to venture capital but also could apply to underwriters of IPOs industry as well. IPOs activities provide huge revenues for underwriters, so underwriters compete with each other for IPO business. China’s stock market grows explosively after 2006, and it has the highest underpricing, as well as more and more underwriters have emerged recently, so our paper is constrained under Chinese stock market environment. We empirically examine whether inexperienced underwriters grandstand when they conduct IPOs in order to achieve more market shares, for example by deliberate underpricing or charging lower fee rates. This study is conducted from the underwriter’s perspective. We use two kinds of reputation measurement methods to define “inexperienced” and “prestigious underwriters” and employ a quantitative approach to analyze the data. Evidence from a sample of 392 IPOs from June 19, 2006 to March 24, 2010 suggests that inexperienced underwriters do not have incentives to grandstand. The number of IPOs that underwriters have conducted and recent IPO performance do not always contribute to a gain of market share directly. Therefore, inexperienced underwriters do not provide more underpriced IPOs nor do they charge lower fee rates. Evidence also marginally supports that underwriters do not intend to conduct small offer sized IPOs.