Padmaja Kadiyala

Options on Initial Public Offerings

We analyze the determinants and consequences of option listing on IPO firm stock. We find that options are listed earlier on venture-backed and lower-reputation underwriter IPOs. We find a significant decrease in stock returns immediately after option listing, persisting for a year. Analyzing the determinants of this equity underperformance, we find a permanent threefold increase in short-interest ratio and aggressive insider selling in IPO equity following option listing. Further, buying newly listed put options on IPO stock yields up to 6.3% monthly excess returns. Overall, we find that option listing relaxes short-sales constraints on IPO equity, thereby correcting short-run overvaluation.

Size Effects in the Pricing of Corporate Bonds

Large orders for corporate bonds get preferential treatment unlike large orders for stocks on the NYSE. A structural explanation, namely, that the corporate bond market is dealer‐dominated, has been offered for the favorable pricing. In this paper, we offer an additional explanation, namely, that the improved pricing for large orders is due to the net impact such orders have on a market makers costs. Using a data sample that is substantially free of timing mismatch, we support our assertion by sorting the sample into ‘brokered’ trades, which are trades where the dealer merely crosses buy and sell orders and ‘inventoried’ trades, where the dealer trades out of his inventory. We find that large orders raise information costs, but lower inventory costs for ‘inventoried’ trades. The net result is a smaller price advantage than received by large orders on ‘brokered’ trades which are not subject to these costs.

Default Prone Bond Prices, Valuable Growth Options and the Option to Re-Organize

There is a wide body of literature in corporate finance that examines the tradeoffs between liquidation and re-organization for creditors in financially distressed firms (Kahl (2002), Hotchkiss (1995), Gertner and Scharfstein (1991)). We incorporate salient elements from this literature into a structural model of corporate bond prices. We derive the value of perpetual coupon-paying risky debt as a function of the option held by bondholders to either liquidate or to take control when a firm becomes financially distressed. Liquidation value is the depreciated value of assets in place. Firm value under bondholders is with some efficiency loss, the sum of assets in place and future growth options. We derive ex-ante values of corporate bond prices as a function of the current values of these two competing choices.