A model for IPO pricing and contract choice decision

Abstract

This paper attempts to reconcile the average underpricing phenomenon with the expected wealth maximizing behaviors of market participants. Under the usual informational asymmetry, the optimal offer price for best efforts IPOs is derived as a function of the uncertainty about market's valuation, the expected return on proposed projects and the size of offerings relative to the firm's market value. According to these firm-specific characteristics, best efforts IPOs can be underpriced, fairly priced, or overpriced. Employing the investment banker as an outside information producer, the basic pricing model is extended to provide empirical implication for underwriting contract choice decision as well as for the pricing. Consistent with the existing empirical evidences, the model predicts that the issuers with greater uncertainty about market's valuation choose best efforts contract over firm commitment contract and that the dispersion of initial returns would be greater for best efforts IPOs than for firm commitment IPOs. © 2001 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.