Informationsbrist…javisst! : Börsnoteringars (IPO) efterföljande prestation och prospektets betydelse

Sammanfattning: Background: A public offering or "Initial Public Offering" means that a company is transferred from being unlisted to trading on a stock exchange. When a company is listed, the company needs to establish a prospectus. This document is meant to give potential investors information about the operations in the company with both historical financial data and more descriptive information. The prospectus should therefore contain all necessary information needed to make a well-founded assessment about the IPO. Historically IPOs have tended to overperform in the short term and have an underperformance in the long run compared with already listed companies. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to identify the general return patterns for IPOs in Sweden in both short-term and in the long run. The study also aims to investigate whether the company's prospectus published in connection with the IPO can explain these yield patterns. Methodology: The general return patterns have been calculated using the Buy and Hold Abnormal Return (BHAR) and Cumulative Abnormal Return (CAR) methods. The raw returns shown by the IPOs have been adjusted to the chosen reference index to determine whether an over- or underperformance has taken place. In addition, several multiple regressions have been conducted to determine whether selected variables can explain the abnormal return shown by IPOs. Conclusion: The study results shows that the initial return on the first day of the 2007-2014 period was an average of 2.82% for the study's selection of 45 public offerings from Stockholmsbörsen and First North. The IPOs showed a negative trend with an underperformance in the first three months. The result for the short term is thus not consistent with previous research in IPOs. In the long run, however, the study's selection shows an underperformance of -12.85% measured with BHAR and -24.13% with CAR. This result is consistent with previous studies in other markets. Furthermore, only one of the selected variables, the initial return, could to some extent (16.8%) explain the abnormal return for the first month. The other variables were not statistically significant in any of the studied periods.