Lastminute Ipo And Subsequent Performance Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

The short-run underpricing and long-run underperformance of initial public offerings (IPOs) are the best documented anomalies in finance. This paper investigates if these anomalies exist in the aftermarket performance of the IPO of an internet-based company, Lastminute.com plc. Further analyses are then carried out to explain the performance results. Evidence are presented that the companys IPO exhibits positive abnormal returns on the first day of trading. There are several theories of underpricing do not apply in explaining the short-run performance of the company. The long-run underperformance of IPO, which found in previous research, is not supported by the evidence of this study. The main problem of the long-run performance investigation is the difficulty of justifying systematic long-run underperformance in a reliable manner, especially during the bubble period. Declaration This project is entirely my own and includes nothing that could be interpreted as plagiarism of any other published or unpublished research or of any other students unpublished work. 1. Introduction Numerous studies have documented two well-known anomalies in initial public offerings (IPOs). One is that the IPOs provide large positive abnormal returns in the initial days of trading (Ritter, 1987; Levis 1990). This anomaly has been observed in almost every finance markets of the world. The other puzzle is IPOs appear to be overpriced in the long run. For example, Ritter (1991) provides evidence that US IPOs significantly underperform in the 3 years following the offering. However, the international evidence on the long-run performance of IPOs are less extensive and unanimously conclusive than the one on underpricing. The purpose of this study is to investigate the short-run as well as the long-run performance of an internet-based company, Lastminute.com plc which floated before dot-com bubble burst by using the event study methodology on IPOs. Besides, this clinical study provides further analyses and possible explanations for the observed results of the analysed firm based on the theoretical models in academic literature. I use market adjusted abnormal returns (MAARs) to measure short-run performance and the intercept from Fama-French (1993) three-factor model, i.e. Jensens alpha ( to measure average monthly abnormal return for different periods in the long run. These returns are adjusted by different benchmarks. Moreover, buy-and-hold abnormal returns (BHARs) are computed as a complementary analysis for the results from the Fama-French three factor model. To summarize the empirical findings of this paper, first, the results provide evidence supporting the general robustness of the prior finding with regard to the short-run underpricing of the Lastminute.coms IPO. There is significant and abnormally high first day return for the studied firm regardless the selection of benchmark. The short-run performance appears to be best explained by the high speculation level over the issue. The Rock (1986) model, the signalling hypothesis and the underwriter p restigious hypothesis are not the appropriate elucidations for the abnormal initial return results. Second, unlike previous research, the interesting finding is an inverse relationship between the periods after the firm floated and its poor post-IPO performance. The results from Fama-French three-factor model are not consistent with the initial prediction based on the academic literature. I find that Lastminute.com outperforms the market indices in the long run in spite of the signs of underperformance in the first year of trading. Results also show that the company performs better than other technology companies when the period tested is longer than 1 year. These results, nevertheless, are all statistically insignificant and therefore it concludes that the company of interest does not exhibit abnormal performance in the long run. Furthermore, the earnings management analysis does not indicate that there are accounting manipulations in the firm prior to the flotation. The dot- com bubble period, 1999-2000 period is extraordinary for the simple fact that both valuations and underpricing of firms simultaneously skyrocketed. It is important to note that Ljungvist and Wilhelm Jr. (2002) provide some evidence for the unique firm characteristics and aberrant pricing behaviour during the period. This paper, however, does not intend to examine the effect of the bubble on asset pricing and investor behaviour. I leave this for other researchers. The rest of my paper is arranged as follows. Section 2 provides the background for the studied firm. Section 3 reviews the IPO academic literature on short-run underpricing and long-run underperformance. Section 4 describes the data, methodology and hypothesis used in the investigation. Section 5 set out the short-run results and analysis. Section 6 set out the long-run results and analysis. Section 7 discusses the limitations and possible future research for the paper. Section 8 concludes the paper. 2. Background of the clinical study The company under investigation, Lastminute.com plc is an online travel agency and e-tailer which specialises in selling inventory such as package holidays, flights and consumer products at cut-rate prices to website customers. It was founded by Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman in 1998. The site became an instant hit with internet travelers, garnering enough business and rapid growth to allow the company to offer stock on the London Stock Exchange in March 2000. The purpose of the offering, according to its prospectus, was to raise approximately  £113.5 million. Half of the amount would be used to increase sales and marketing activities, and the remaining for product development and expansion such as broadening supplier base, potential acquisition in UK and internationally. In addition, the company acknowledged in the prospectus that it was not profitable and expected to incur future losses. The major risk factors were reliance on third parties, intense competition and e-com merce uncertainties. Lane Fox and Hoberman became the icon of UK internet business entrepreneurs during the British dot-com boom. The company timed its launch to perfection and floated at the peak of the internet bubble. The issues received high interest of public and the share price spiralled as high as 555p from the offer price 380p on the first day of trading. Following the bubble burst, subsequently, Lastminute.coms stock sank and lost nearly half of its value within three weeks. Lastminute.com, however, unlike hundreds of other first-wave internet companies, it survived the bubble burst and stock market clash in 2001. Moreover, it continues to thrive and grow through expansion and shows reducing loss in its financial accounts. Lastminute.com is still considered as one of the few successful internet-based businesses in the relatively unstable world of internet. 3. Literature review 3.1. Empirical evidence and theories of short-run IPO underpricing A number of studies indicate the mispricing of IPOs which tend to yield substantial returns in the days immediately following issue. Stoll and Curley (1970) are the avant-garde to show the systematic abnormal first-day returns of IPOs. Substantial international evidence show that IPO underpricing has become a worldwide phenomenon. For British IPOs, the studies of Dimson (1979), Buckland, Herbert and Yeomans (1981), the Bank of England (1990), Jenkinson and Mayer (1988) and Levis (1993) exhibit average first day returns ranging from 8.6% to 17%. Ritter (1987), Welch (1989), Ibbotson, Sindelar and Ritter (1994) and Rajan and Servaes (1997) provide evidence suggesting that the existence of average initial returns of up to 16% has been a regular feature of the US new issue market. Lee, Taylor and Walter (1994), Jacquillat (1986), Kaneko and Pettway (1994) and Ljungqvist (1997) among others provide evidence of abnorma l returns of up to 14% in the developed markets of the world such as Australia, France, Japan and Germany. The literature abounds with a variety of conjectures that purport to explain the observed underpricing in IPOs based on the economic realities in the marketplace. Rock (1986) model provide a fundamental and convincing explanation for IPO performance by applying winners curse hypothesis to the new issue market. The model classifies investors as either informed or uninformed. The former are those who spend to assess the potential performance of the new issue, whereas the latter do not spend resources on the evaluation of the stock. Informed investors tend to crowd out uninformed investors for the underpriced and possibly lucrative issues. Consequently, uninformed investors hold a disproportionately large amount of overpriced IPOs, as informed investors may not subscribe. Uninformed investors would leave the market as they would systematically make losses. In order to keep the uninformed investors in the IPO market and to compensate their expected losses, the investment bankers have to offer the securities at discounts from their expected after-market prices. The studies by Koh and Walter (1989), Keloharju (1993), and Levis (1990) produce results that are consistent with and thus add further weight to the Rock model. Some theories propose the underpricing as a signalling mechanism of the firm quality. Allen and Faulhaber (1989) conclude that IPO underpricing is a credible indication of a firms post issue prospects. It is assumed that the underpricing in the firms initial offering is an immediate loss to the initial owners and companies with favourable position and performance in the after-market will be able to recoup the loss. These good companies underprice their IPO, because by doing so they direct investors to a favourable subsequent dividend results. Nevertheless, the assumption that company directors are willing to accept the initial loss on the IPO and renounce larger potential funding is doubtful in practical realities of market. Ritter (1984) suggested that gross underpricing may be a result of the monopsony power of the investment bankers in underwriting common stocks of small speculative firms. These investment bankers intentionally underprice the securities and only are allocated to favoured large customers who regularly buy a variety of investment services from the investment bank and thus pay unusually high brokerage fees. Tinic (1988), however, found evidence that the monopsony power hypothesis is not adequate for explaining underpricing behaviour. Johnson and Miller (1988) advance another explanation for underpricing. They analyse the prestige of underwriters and the level of underpricing. The finding is that the greater the underwriter prestige, the lower the degree of underpricing and it also works in the opposite way. This suggests the more prestigious banks require less underpricing to attract investor i nterest because they deal with lower risk issues. Beatty and Welch (1996) challenge the underwriter prestige hypothesis and show the inverse relation recently reversed for small firms. Muscarella and Vetsuypens (1989) find that investment banks themselves that go public are underpriced as well. The speculative bubble hypothesis claims that large excess returns of the IPOs are attributed to the investors who could not get allocations of the oversubscribed new issues from the underwriters at the offering prices. The speculative appetites of these investors then speculate temporarily inflating the price of the new issues in the aftermarket. When speculative demand diminishes, this speculative bubble should burst and negative excess returns are expected on the post-IPO share. Tests on aftermarket returns by Ritter (1984) and Tinic (1988) could find no evidence supportive of this hypothesis. Tinic (1988) and Hughes and Thakor (1992) argue that IPO underpricing used as a form of ins urance to reduce legal liability by both issuers and underwriters. This theory implies that a greater degree of underpricing occur to prevent investors experiencing significant losses on IPOs, as a result they are willing to neglect small errors such as omission of data, inadequate nature of data supplied for the disclosure requirement and thus not led to legal actions. However, Drake and Vetsuypens (1993) criticize and reject this hypothesis by showing evidence that underpriced IPOs are just as likely to be sued as overpriced IPOs and that there is no significant difference in underpricing between sued and non-sued firms. 3.2 Empirical evidence and theories of long-run underperformance The long-run underperformance of IPOs is a well-known perplexity in IPO literature and has attracted much attention from either investors or academic researchers in recent years. From an investors viewpoint, the existence of price patterns may present opportunities for superior returns using ac tive trading strategies. A finding of non-zero market performance would also call into question the informational efficiency of the IPO market which proposes after-market stock price should appropriately reflect the shares intrinsic value. Several authors have examined the returns on IPOs during the three years after going public for a number of countries. The international evidence of long-run underperformance is summarized in Table 1. Table 1 International Evidence on Long-run IPO Overpricing Country