Christopher B. Barry

The Role of Venture Capital in the Creation of Public Companies: Evidence from the Going-Public Process

Explores the nature of the venture capital investment through examination of initial public offerings (IPOs). Venture capitalists are often active investors who participate in management of the firms. The venture capital investment can be ended in a variety of ways, with the sale of the companys shares through a public offering being the most prevalent. Data used in the analysis includes 433 IPOs that were backed by venture capitalists from 1978 to 1987 and 1,123 IPOs without such backing. Results show that venture capitalists tend to focus on certain industries, in order to develop an expertise. In this case, the focus was on computer equipment, electrical and electronic components, instrumentation, and business services. The median offering size of firm IPOs backed by venture capitalists was larger than the size of those not backed. Based on analysis of the full sample, it appears that venture capitalists are able to bring public the firms they back earlier than would have otherwise been possible. This likely occurs because of the industries in which the venture capitalists focus. Venture capitalists take a monitoring role, demonstrated by serving on the board, maintaining the investment beyond the IPO, and holding a large equity position in a portfolio firm. Finally, it is determined that investor uncertainty is reduced with the quality of the venture capitalists monitoring skill. A decrease in investor uncertainty was found to decrease IPO underpricing. These findings support the notion that venture capitalists play an important role in new enterprise. (SRD)

Differential Information and Security Market Equilibrium

We propose a simple model of equilibrium asset pricing in which there are differences in the amounts of information available for developing inferences about the returns parameters of alternative securities. In contrast with earlier work, we show that parameter uncertainty, or estimation risk, can have an effect upon market equilibrium. Under reasonable conditions, securities for which there is relatively little information are shown to have relatively higher systematic risk when that risk is properly measured, ceteris paribus . The initially very limited model is shown to be robust with respect to relaxation of a number of its principal assumptions. We provide theoretical support for the empirical examination of at least three proxies for relative information: period of listing, number of security returns observations available, and divergence of analyst opinion.

DIFFERENTIAL INFORMATION AND THE SMALL FIRM EFFECT

We examine a model of market equilibrium in which there is less information available about some of the securities in the market than about others. We consider the model as a potential explanation of the well-known small firm anomaly. Using period of listing as a proxy for quantity of information, we find an association between period of listing and security returns that cannot be accounted for by firm size and which is not diminished by an elimination of January returns data from our sample. Thus, we observe a new empirical regularity in the data and refer to the regularity as the ‘period of listing’ effect.

New Directions in Research on Venture Capital Finance

This paper surveys recent research on venture capital and suggests directions for future research. There is new empirical evidence in the field, and new theoretical models have resolved some issues. The paper selectively examines recent findings, particularly models and empirical work about staging of financing, the use of syndicates, the process of screening investments, and participation by venture capitalists in IPOs. Finally, the paper identifies some of the remaining issues for which new research is needed.

Limited information as a source of risk

Small growth firms . . . are typically entering new areas about which little information is available. There may be great potential, but large risks are also involved, and for every glowing success story there are many instances of failure. . . . the small, rapidly growing firm faces a precarious existence, even when the product market opportunities upon which it was conceived are sound. (Weston and Brigham (1981, p. 9931)

Underwriter warrants, underwriter compensation, and the costs of going public

Abstract Warrants are sometimes granted to underwriters in initial public offerings as part of the compensation for their services. We examine the effects of underwriter warrants in a sample of firm commitment offerings from 1983 through 1987. These warrants represent a significant component of the compensation to the underwriter and are associated with greater total costs of going public. Warrants appear to provide a mechanism for circumventing otherwise binding regulatory constraints, allowing issuers to offer extra compensation to underwriters marketing especially risky offerings.

Robustness of Size and Value Effects in Emerging Equity Markets, 1985-2000

We examine the robustness of size and book-to-market effects in 35 emerging equity markets during 1985-2000. Book-to-market effects are significant and are robust to tests accounting for non-normality and for firm size effects, and they do not depend on extreme returns. Size effects are also present but do not have the robustness found for book-to-market results. Book-to-market effects are found within size portfolios, but size effects are not found within book-to-market portfolios. Significant size results are produced by extreme returns. Moreover, size effects are found when size is measured relative to the local market but not in tests using absolute firm size. Cross-sectional regressions controlling for global and local systematic risk confirm the findings.

Information and Diversity of Analyst Opinion

This paper examines problems in the use of divergence of analyst opinion as a proxy for estimation risk in empirical studies of security returns and asset pricing models. We demonstrate that diversity of opinion can increase even though the amount of private information increases, and we show that diversity of opinion may overstate estimation risk if the capital market aggregates the information held by investors. We produce empirical results consistent with our conclusions. Specifically, we find that divergence of opinion can produce measures of estimation risk that are inconsistent with a received proxy for estimation risk and with observed common stock returns.

Information Dissemination and Portfolio Choice

The process of security price adjustment to the release of new information has long held the interest of the finance profession, both in academics and in practice. The efficiency of financial markets in reflecting new information significantly impacts the allocation of capital and income within the markets1 and, consequently, can affect social welfare. Thus, public, business, and investment policies are all related to an understanding of the functioning of security markets and their utilization of information. As a result, a significant body of economic research has considered the impact of information upon security markets under a number of alternative market structures. In this paper, we attempt to contribute to this literature by extending previous research in the two related areas of speculation and information dissemination.

Tax‐Induced Trading of Equity Securities: Evidence from the ADR Market

We examine ex-dividend date trading of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) using a sample of 1,043 dividends over the period 1988 to 1995. ADR dividends are often subject to foreign withholding taxes, creating incentives for certain investors to avoid the distribution. ADRs exhibit negative abnormal ex-dividend day returns, and their prices behave consistently with their related withholding taxes. Abnormal trading volume for taxable issues exceeds 130 percent and 300 percent of normal volume on the cum- and ex-dates, respectively. Abnormal volume is an increasing function of foreign withholding tax rates and decreasing function of transactions costs. This abnormal ex-date trading activity is consistent with tax-motivated trading. Copyright (c) 2003 by the American Finance Association.