Yacine Belghitar

Do venture capitalists reduce underpricing and underperformance of IPOs

The purpose of this article is to assess the effect of venture capitalists at Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). In so doing, a sample of Venture Capital (VC)-backed firms was compared with a sample of non-VC-backed firms. Consistent with the prevailing belief that venture capitalists reduce uncertainty at the offering, VC-backed IPOs are found to be less underpriced than non-VC-backed IPOs. Moreover, in multivariate analyses, venture capitalists affect negatively the degree of underpricing. Unlike previous studies, we control for the new listing and rebalancing biases in the analysis of the long term performance by comparing the IPO returns to carefully constructed size matched portfolios. Based on the calendar time and the event time approaches, the results show that both samples are underperforming the carefully constructed reference portfolios in the long term. The analysis also shows that the VC-backed IPOs do not outperform the non-VC-backed IPOs. The overall difference between both sets of IPOs is also not statistically significant.

The Effect of CEO Risk Appetite on Firm Volatility: An Empirical Analysis of Financial Firms

Abstract This paper examines the effect of CEO risk appetite on the return volatility of a sample of large, listed financial firms over the period 2000–2008. After controlling for firm specific characteristics, the results give strong evidence that the CEO risk appetite has an important effect on firm volatility. The biographical measures for CEO risk appetite are significant explanatory variables of all measures of firm volatility employed in this study. The effect of CEO age is significant and positive for all four volatility measures, while CEO education and current job tenure are negative and significant for all four measures. Executive experience with other firm boards has a negative and significant effect on total and idiosyncratic volatility. Interestingly, CEO wealth is complementary to the other biographical variables with a positive effect on all but the default volatility measure. Our results carry implications for shareholders, financial regulators, governments, and managers.

Theoretical motives of corporate cash holdings and political connections: firms level evidence from a developing economy

In this paper, we revisit the theoretical motives of corporate cash holdings while concentrating on the effect of political connections. In particular, we postulate two competing hypotheses for the effects that political connections can have on cash holdings: ‘substitution effect hypothesis’ and ‘complementary effect hypothesis’. Using the data on Pakistani firms over the period 2002–2010, we find that connected firms hold significantly larger cash reserves than their non-connected counterparts, thus confirming the ‘complementary hypothesis’, which suggests that agency problems lead connected firms to accumulate large amount of cash. Further, this effect is found to be more pronounced in dictatorial as opposed to democratic regimes indicating the presence of higher degrees of political patronage in that period. Finally, we also find differences in the complementary effect based on firm characteristics. Our results suggest that the firm size and leverage have increasing effects on the cash holdings of connected firms, contrary to the mainstream literature standpoint.

Do Political Connections Affect Firm Performance? Evidence from a Developing Country

ABSTRACT We investigate how politicians serving on the boards of directors influence firm performance. The results show a negative relationship between political connections and firm performance. Specifically, politically connected firms underperform nonconnected firms directors by almost 17 percent and 15 percent based on return on assets and return on equity, respectively. By stratifying the sample duration into two periods based on the political environment, we find that this effect is more pronounced in autocratic as opposed to democratic regimes. Finally, our results also suggest that the performance of connected firms with more growth opportunities is not affected by political connections.

Do corporate governance mechanisms affect cash dividends? An empirical investigation of UK firms

The study examines whether corporate governance mechanisms and the compliance with good governance practice are related to cash dividends. In particular, the study assesses the effect of institutional ownership and board structure on the decision to pay cash dividends. A study on UK firms is interesting because firms are expected to voluntarily structure governance mechanisms based on their own needs. We find that institutional owners positively affect cash dividend payments, suggesting that UK institutions are effective in forcing firms to disgorge cash. There is limited evidence that independent directors affect the cash dividends. The results also show that firm specifics affect the cash dividends, namely, business risk, firm size, and leverage ratio. The results are consistent across several robustness checks.

The Effect of Floating Exchange Rates on SME Performance

This paper studies the effect of floating exchange rates (XRs) on the competitive environment and the performance of UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Using an innovative technique that separates XR exposures into those that increase stock market returns and those that reduce them, it provides evidence that floating XRs have a generally negative effect on the competitive environment for SMEs. The effect is weaker for the euro and reflects the economic integration of the UK with the other EU economies. Focusing on SMEs in conventional firm-by-firm regressions, it provides evidence that SME exposure to exchange rate (XR) fluctuations differs significantly in sign and magnitude from that of the largest 250 UK firms. It also shows that individual SMEs are generally unable to overcome the negative competitive effects introduced by the floating XR. Both depreciations and appreciations of the XR have a predominantly negative effect on returns for all SMEs, for all years, for all industries and for all currencies, although it is weaker for the euro. There is no significant difference between exporters and non-exporters at any conventional level. We also document that exposures vary over time in response to changing economic conditions and firm specific circumstances.

Political Connections and Corporate Financial Decision Making

This paper investigates whether and how political connections influence managerial financial decisions. Our study reveals that those firms that have a politician on its board of directors are highly leveraged, use more long-term debt, hold large excess cash and are associated with low quality financial reporting compared to their non-connected counterparts. These effects escalate with the strength of the connected politician and whether he or his party is in power. The winning party effect is observed to be stronger than victory by the politician himself. Overall, our paper provides strong evidence that political connection is a two-edged sword. It is indeed a valuable resource for connected firms, but it comes at a cost of higher agency problems.

Trade Credit in Europe: 'It is All Down to Culture'

This article examines trade credit decision in Western Europe using a comprehensive sample of 182,296 SMEs for the period 2003-2013. We develop a theoretical framework based on information asymmetry, financial distress and the role of country informal institutions. The results show that country cultural norms play a key role in explaining trade credit differences in a European region that share common formal institutional characteristics. We find that in countries with high power distance, high individualism, high masculinity, and high uncertainty avoidance rely more on trade credit. These results are robust to a range of alternative variable measurements, conventional control variables and specifications.