Seasoned Equity Issuance by Closed -End Funds

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Seasoned Equity Issuance by Closed -End Funds Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 2000 Seasoned Equity Issuance by Closed -End Funds. William Henry Brigham Jr Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Brigham, William Henry Jr, "Seasoned Equity Issuance by Closed -End Funds." (2000). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 7143. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/7143 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bieedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6* x 9” black and white photographic prints are available tar any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SEASONED EQUITY ISSUANCE BY CLOSED-END FUNDS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Interdepartmental Program in Business Administration by William Henry Brigham, Jr. B.S., Vanderbilt University, 1981 M.S., Louisiana State University, 1995 May, 2000 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number 9963938 ___ ® UMI UMI Microform 9963938 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to my chairman, Dr. Ji-Chai Lin, for his valuable advice, his unstinting patience, and his steadfast encouragement. There was never a time I left his office that I didn’t feel a little wiser and a little more optimistic. Also on my committee, I am indebted to Dr. Myron Slovin for his crucial insight and suggestions. He always asked the right questions, and helped me see how the pieces fit together. I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Drs. Gary Sanger, Faik Koray, and Lynn Lamotte. From this day forward, I will always be thankful for the encouragement provided by Dr. John Broussard, a true friend. My first and greatest debt is owed to my wife, Jane Mostellar Brigham. It is to her that I dedicate this work. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................. ii LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................................ iv ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. AN OVERVIEW......................................................................................... I 1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................1 1.2 Structure and Trading Patterns of Closed-End F u n d s .............................................3 1.3 Legal and Regulatory Aspects of Closed-End Funds...............................................5 1.4 Summary......................................................................................................................7 CHAPTER 2. PUBLIC SECURITIES ISSUANCE...........................................................8 2.1 General........................................................................................................................8 2.2 Price Pressure Phenom ena .........................................................................................11 2.3 Rights Offers ..............................................................................................................15 2.4 Ownership Structure and Concentration ................................................................. 21 CHAPTER 3. IMPLICATIONS OF SECURITIES ISSUANCE BY CLOSED-END FUNDS.................................................................................... 23 3.1 Implications for Pre-announcement and Announcement Period Returns _______ 23 3.2 Implications for Offering Period Returns ................................................................. 28 3.3 Implications for Ownership Concentration ............................................................. 33 CHAPTER 4. SAMPLE DEVELOPMENT AND STATISTICS 4.1 Sample Development .................................................................................................35 4.2 Descriptive Statistics .................................................................................................36 CHAPTER 5. EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ...........................................................42 5.1 Pre-issuance Price Runup .......................................................................................... 42 5.2 Event Study for Period Around Issuance ................................................................. 44 5.3 Announcement Period Returns .................................................................................. 50 5.4 Offering Period Returns .............................................................................................51 5.5 Changes in Ownership Concentration and Trading Volume ................................... 61 5.6 Evidence on Funds’ Choice Between Rights and Firm Commitment Offerings.. 64 CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION.......................................................................................... 67 REFERENCES......................................................................................................................70 VITA .................................................................................................................................... 74 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES 1. Time Distribution of Equity Offerings.............................................................. 37 2. Market Capitalization Characteristics of Sample Firms on Announcement D a y.....................................................................................................................38 3. Rights issues: subscription price relative discounts ....................................... 39 4. Relative size of rights issues ..............................................................................39 5. Unadjusted mean cumulative returns for the year preceding closed-end fund equity issue announcement...................................................................... 43 6. Unadjusted mean cumulative returns for the first 100 trading days after closed-end fund equity issue announcement................................................... 45 7. Percent average abnormal stock returns for 7 event periods around issue announcements ......................................................................................... 47 8. Percent average abnormal stock returns at announcement of firm commitmentofferings................... ................................................................. 49 9. Unadjusted cumulative returns during offering periods, for transferable vs. Nontransferable subsamples ...................................................................... 53 10. OLS estimates in a cross-sectional regresion of raw offering period cumulative returns against relative issue size and a dummy for rights transferability ....................................................................................................54 11. OLS estimates in cross-sectional regressions of raw offer period cumulative returns against the
Recommended publications
  • Do Firms Issue More Equity When Markets Become More Liquid?
    Journal of Financial Economics, forthcoming Do firms issue more equity when markets become more liquid? Rogier M. Hanselaar, René M. Stulz, and Mathijs A. van Dijk* October 2017 Abstract Using quarterly data on IPOs and SEOs for 37 countries from 1995 to 2014, we show that changes in equity issuance are positively related to lagged changes in aggregate local stock market liquidity. This relation is as economically significant as the well-known relation between equity issuance and lagged stock returns. It survives the inclusion of proxies for market timing, capital market conditions, growth prospects, asymmetric information, and investor sentiment. Changes in liquidity are less relevant for issuance by firms with greater financial pressures, and by firms in less financially developed countries. * Stulz is at The Ohio State University, NBER, and ECGI; Hanselaar and van Dijk are at Erasmus University. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. Van Dijk thanks the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for financial support through a “Vidi” grant. We thank Dimitris Vagias for his research assistance on an earlier version of this paper. We are grateful for comments from an anonymous referee, Brian Baugh, Andrew Carverhill, Thierry Foucault, Edith Ginglinger, Andrei Gonçalves, Yeejin Jang, Andreas Park, Jeffrey Pontiff, Ioanid Rosu, Charles Trzcinka, Avi Wohl, and seminar participants at Boston College, Boston University, Erasmus University, HEC Paris, Tel Aviv University, and the 2012 Frontiers of Finance Conference at Warwick Business School. 1. Introduction There is a large literature showing that aggregate stock market liquidity changes over time within countries (e.g., Chordia, Sarkar, and Subrahmanyam, 2005; Lesmond, 2005).
    [Show full text]
  • Initial Public Offering Allocations
    Initial Public Offering Allocations by Sturla Lyngnes Fjesme A dissertation submitted to BI Norwegian Business School for the degree of PhD PhD specialization: Financial Economics Series of Dissertations 9/2011 BI Norwegian Business School Sturla Lyngnes Fjesme Initial Public Offering Allocations © Sturla Lyngnes Fjesme 2011 Series of Dissertations 9/2011 ISBN: 978-82-8247-029-2 ISSN: 1502-2099 BI Norwegian Business School N-0442 Oslo Phone: +47 4641 0000 www.bi.no Printing: Nordberg Trykk The dissertation may be downloaded or ordered from our website www.bi.no/en/Research/Research-Publications/ Abstract Stock exchanges have rules on the minimum equity level and the minimum number of shareholders that are required to list publicly. Most private companies that want to list publicly must issue equity to be able to meet these minimum requirements. Most companies that list on the Oslo stock exchange (OSE) are restricted to selling shares in an IPO to a large group of dispersed investors or in a negotiated private placement to a small group of specialized investors. Initial equity offerings have high expected returns and this makes them very popular investments. Ritter (2003) and Jenkinson and Jones (2004) argue that there are three views on how shares are allocated in the IPO setting. First, is the academic view based on Benveniste and Spindt (1989). In this view investment banks allocate IPO shares to informed investors in return for true valuation and demand information. Informed investors are allocated shares because they help to price the issue. Second, is the pitchbook view where investment banks allocate shares to institutional investors that are likely to hold shares in the long run.
    [Show full text]
  • Capital Markets: Building the Investment Bank of the Future Contents
    Capital Markets: building the investment bank of the future Contents Executive summary 2 What does the future hold for your investment bank? 3 Reshape the business 5 Grow the business 7 Optimize the business 8 Protect the business 11 Control the business 12 Toward the investment bank of the future 13 Executive summary We believe there is a bright future for the capital markets Grow the business: To regain profitable growth, industry. The long-term market fundamentals are positive, 2 investment banks should clearly define their risk even if the recent financial performance of many global appetite, the clients they want to serve, the products investment banks is disappointing. While aggregate revenues they want to offer and how they want to distribute for the largest investment banks in FY15 were in line with those products, as well as the geographic footprint pre-crisis revenues a decade earlier, some businesses (such of the organization. In addition, they should harness as parts of fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC)) the power of analytics to better serve the clients they seem to be in terminal decline.1 Moreover, operating costs and already have. capital requirements have significantly increased. This means Optimize the business: New operating models should long-term success will demand that banks fundamentally 3 be developed that take advantage of technology, reshape their business. partnerships and industry utilities to improve service Ever since the global financial crisis, the viability of the and reduce cost. In addition, banks will need to investment banking business model has been under scrutiny optimize their balance sheet in the face of multiple and banks have been struggling to redefine their roles.
    [Show full text]
  • Investment Banker Directors and Seasoned Equity Offerings*
    Investment Banker Directors and Seasoned Equity Offerings* Qianqian Huang College of Business City University of Hong Kong Kowloon Tong, HK [email protected] Kai Li Sauder School of Business University of British Columbia 2053 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 [email protected] Ting Xu Sauder School of Business University of British Columbia 2053 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 [email protected] This version: December, 2016 * We are grateful for helpful comments from Xueping Wu. Li acknowledges financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. All errors are ours. Investment Banker Directors and Seasoned Equity Offerings Abstract We examine how directors with investment banking experience affect firms’ capital raising activities. We find that firms with investment bankers on their boards have a higher probability of making seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), and that these offerings are associated with higher announcement returns, lower underpricing, and lower underwriter spreads. These results are consistent with the idea that investment banker directors reduce information asymmetry between issuers and the equity market. We find a limited role of investment banker directors in firms issuing bonds or obtaining loans, which are less information-sensitive than equity. Overall, our results highlight the advisory role of specialist directors in shaping corporate policies. Keywords: Seasoned equity offerings; board of directors; investment banking experience; information asymmetry; advisory role of directors JEL Classification: G14, G24, G32 I. Introduction Much of the discussions on corporate boards has centered on their monitoring role, yet boards spend a significant portion of their time advising rather than monitoring (Adams and Ferreira (2007) and Adams, Hermalin, and Weisbach (2010)).
    [Show full text]
  • Are Initial Returns and Underwriting Spreads in Equity Issues Complements Or Substitutes?
    Are Initial Returns and Underwriting Spreads in Equity Issues Complements or Substitutes? Dongcheol Kim, Darius Palia, and Anthony Saunders∗ The objective of this paper is to analyze the joint behavior of underwriting spreads and initial returns on equity issues for a large sample of issues over a 21-year period. Traditional empirical approaches to the determination of these direct and indirect issuing costs view them as independent. Using a three-stage least squares approach, we find these costs to be positively and significantly related. In the case of seasoned equity offerings, our results are robust to replacing initial returns with the offer price discount. We also find that low quality issuers are charged higher underwriting spreads and initial returns when compared to high quality issuers. The underpricing of an issue of new initial publics offerings (IPOs) and seasoned equity offering (SEOs) has been well documented in the literature.1,2 Yet, a major source of underwriter revenue lies in the underwriting spread, which in a firm commitment offering is the difference between the price paid for the issue by investors and the price paid to the issuer divided by the issue proceeds. There is increasing interest in the literature to analyze the size of these spreads (Hansen, 1986, 2001; Smith, 1986; Hansen, Fuller, and Janjigian, 1987; Denis, 1991; Eckbo and Masulis, 1991; Lee et al., 1996; Chen and Ritter, 2000; Loughran and Ritter, 2004; a recent survey by Eckbo, Masulis, and Norli, 2008). While it is recognized that underpricing and spreads reflect the indirect and direct costs of issuance, respectively, the empirical relationship or correlation between these two “costs” has not been fully analyzed.
    [Show full text]
  • Market Timing of New Equity Offerings: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms
    Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal Volume 10 Issue 2 Article 3 2016 Market Timing of New Equity Offerings: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms Shiguang Ma Unviersity of Wollongong, Australia, [email protected] Subhrendu Rath Curtin University, Australia Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/aabfj Copyright ©2016 Australasian Accounting Business and Finance Journal and Authors. Recommended Citation Ma, Shiguang and Rath, Subhrendu, Market Timing of New Equity Offerings: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms, Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal, 10(2), 2016, 23-53. doi:10.14453/aabfj.v10i2.3 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] Market Timing of New Equity Offerings: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms Abstract A well-established paradigm of the developed financial market is that firms take advantage of market valuations to make financial decisions. Do firms operating in a highly controlled market follow similar financial strategies? We find that the new equity offerings of Chinese listed firms are strongly associated with market valuations. However, the market timing effectiveness is relatively lower in the firms owned by the State and in the time when firms conduct non-tradable share reform by liquidating non-tradable shares. We also find that the proceeds from equity offerings are expended more in the form of opportunistic and discretionary usage than investment requirements. Our empirical evidence supports the general applicability of the equity market timing theory to the highly controlled emerging market of China. Keywords Market timing, new equity offerings, state ownership, non-tradable shares reform, China This article is available in Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal: https://ro.uow.edu.au/aabfj/vol10/ iss2/3 AABFJ | Volume 10, no.
    [Show full text]
  • Dynamic Corporate Finance Under Costly Equity Issuance
    Dynamic Corporate Finance under Costly Equity Issuance Patrick Bolton and Neng Wang Two fundamental concepts in cor- Although tax distortions and bank- (3) equity issuance costs and cash carry porate finance are the net present value ruptcy costs are obviously relevant, they costs.3 A first, key result of our analy- (NPV) rule and the Modigliani-Miller cannot alone account for most observed sis is that investment is no longer deter- (MM) irrelevance proposition. When corporate financial decisions. They can- mined by equating the marginal cost of financial markets operate without fric- not explain why companies hold so much investing with the marginal addition to tions, when investors can trade securi- cash, their leverage dynamics, nor their the firm’s valuation from such capital, as ties that correspond to all relevant risks, payout, equity issuance, and investment in the neoclassical theory of investment. when investors and managers share the policies. We show in our research that the Instead, investment is determined by the same information, when incentives are cost of issuing equity is a key and practi- ratio of the marginal increase in the firm’s aligned, and when there are no tax distor- cally relevant distortion. Because of asym- value to the marginal value of cash. The tions, then corporate finance boils down metric information or incentive misalign- marginal cost of investing equals the mar- to a valuation exercise and a simple invest- ment, firms must incur costs when raising ginal product of capital, also known as ment decision rule: undertake all invest- external funds1 and these costs are higher marginal q, divided by the marginal value ments with a positive NPV.
    [Show full text]
  • NYSE IPO Guide Third Edition
    NYSE IPO Guide NYSE IPO Guide Third Edition www.nyse.com/ipo Publisher Timothy Dempsey Project Manager Chloe Tuck NYSE Editorial William Kantrowitz and Zachary Harvey Printing and Binding AGS NYSE IPO Guide, Third Edition, is published by Caxton Business & Legal, Inc. 27 North Wacker Drive, Suite 601 Chicago, IL 60606 Phone: +1 312 361 0821 Email: [email protected] Web: www.caxtoninc.com ISBN: 978-0-9964982-5-8 Copyright in individual sections rests with the co- publishers. No photocopying: copyright licenses do not apply. DISCLAIMER The NYSE IPO Guide, Third Edition (the “Guide”), contains summary information about legal and regulatory aspects of the IPO process and is current as of the date of its initial publication (April 2021). The Guide should not be relied upon as a substitute for specific legal or financial advice from a professional. Although efforts have been made to ensure that the information herein is correct, the Guide may contain errors or omissions, and the NYSE, the publishers, and the contributing authors disclaim any responsibility for, or duty to update or correct, any such errors or omissions. The views expressed in the Guide are those of the authors alone. Published by NYSE IPO Guide Third Edition www.nyse.com/ipo Preface 5 2.8 Anti-takeover protections 18 6.6 Market perception feedback 62 Simpson Thacher & Bartlett IHS Markit Stacey Cunningham President, NYSE Group 2.9 Incentive compensation 6.7 Investment community arrangements 19 database and CRM 62 Simpson Thacher & Bartlett IHS Markit Introduction: Advantages of listing on the NYSE 7 2.10 ​Managing third-party risk 22 6.8 ESG and the newly public IHS Markit company 64 IHS Markit NYSE 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Roadmap for an IPO a Guide to Going Public
    www.pwc.com/us/iposervices Roadmap for an IPO A guide to going public November 2017 A publication from PwC Deals Table of contents Introduction ............................................................................1 Income taxes ........................................................................ 39 The decision to go public ........................................................3 Building a going public team ..............................................41 What is a public offering?.......................................................... 3 Identifying your going public team ......................................... 41 Why “go public?” .................................................................... 3 The SEC ................................................................................41 Is going public right for your organization? ............................ 4 Company personnel ..............................................................41 Major factors to consider when exploring whether to go public .. 7 Securities counsel ................................................................ 42 Determining filer status.......................................................11 Investment banker or underwriter ........................................ 42 Do I qualify as a foreign private issuer? .................................. 11 Capital markets advisor ........................................................ 43 Do I qualify as an emerging growth company? ...................... 11 Underwriters’ counsel .........................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Does an Equity Issuance Serve As a Signal for Overvaluation? Evidence from the Biotechnology Industry
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Wharton Research Scholars Wharton Undergraduate Research April 2004 Does an Equity Issuance Serve as a Signal for Overvaluation? Evidence From the Biotechnology Industry Daphne Tong University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/wharton_research_scholars Tong, Daphne, "Does an Equity Issuance Serve as a Signal for Overvaluation? Evidence From the Biotechnology Industry" (2004). Wharton Research Scholars. 18. https://repository.upenn.edu/wharton_research_scholars/18 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/wharton_research_scholars/18 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Does an Equity Issuance Serve as a Signal for Overvaluation? Evidence From the Biotechnology Industry This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/wharton_research_scholars/18 Does an Equity Issuance Serve as a Signal for Overvaluation? Evidence from the Biotechnology Industry By – Daphne Tong Advisor – Andrew Metrick Wharton Undergraduate Research Scholars WH-299-301 April 2004 Does an Equity Issuance Serve as a Signal for Overvaluation? Evidence from the Biotechnology Industry There is a large body of literature on the poor long-run stock performance of the typical initial public offering (IPO). Academic research has observed that IPOs are poor long-run investments. Considering this documented long-run underperformance of IPO firms, a debate still remains of whether the actual event of an equity issuance signals that a firm is overvalued at the time of IPO. Specifically, this empirical study looks to discern whether a firm’s post-IPO performance is a result of an industry or firm-specific overvaluation at the time of IPO. A firm may choose to time its IPO with the impetus that current investor sentiment has placed an unusually high valuation for the entire industry.
    [Show full text]
  • Nber Working Paper Series External Equity Financing
    NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES EXTERNAL EQUITY FINANCING SHOCKS, FINANCIAL FLOWS, AND ASSET PRICES Frederico Belo Xiaoji Lin Fan Yang Working Paper 20210 http://www.nber.org/papers/w20210 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 June 2014 We thank Kenneth Ahern, Hengjie Ai, Hang Bai, Juliane Begeneau, Jonathan B. Cohn, Andrea Eisfeldt, Wayne Ferson, Murray Frank, John Graham, Gerard Hoberg, Jarrad Harford, Kewei Hou, Christian Julliard, Erik Loualiche (WFA discussant), Paulo Maio, Daniel Paravisini, Vincenzo Quadrini, Michael Roberts, Juliana Salomao, Amit Seru, Raj Singh, Ken Singleton, Rene Stulz, Andrea Tamoni, Sheridan Titman, Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh (Macro-Finance Society Workshop discussant), Neng Wang, Mike Weisbach, Jianfeng Yu, Harold Zhang, and Lu Zhang for their comments. We also thank seminar participants at the BI Norwegian Business School, Aalto University and Hanken School of Economics, Ohio State University, University of British Columbia, University of Minnesota, University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas at Dallas, University of Toronto, China International Conference in Finance (2014), Macro-Finance Society Workshop (2014), SED (2014), and WFA (2014). We thank Jarrad Harford, Ryan Israelsen, and Vincenzo Quadrini, for providing us the data on firms’ cash held abroad, collateral constraint shocks, and quality-adjusted investment prices, respectively. Fan Yang acknowledges the financial support from a GRF grant from Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (Project No.755612). All errors are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes.
    [Show full text]
  • Secondary Stock Market Liquidity and the Cost of Issuing Seasoned Equity – European Evidence
    Secondary Stock Market Liquidity and the Cost of Issuing Seasoned Equity – European evidence Finance Master’s thesis Pages: 117 (257,556 characters) Kristian D. Bundgaard MSc. in Finance and Accounting Jonas Ahm MSc. in Applied Economics and Finance August 20212 Advisor Lasse Heje Pedersen Professor at the Department of Finance at Copenhagen Business School & The John A. Paulson Professor of Finance and Alternative Investments at the NYU Stern School of Business Department of Finance Handelshøjskolen København Copenhagen Business School Executive summary This thesis finds that secondary market liquidity is an important and significant predictor of the combined cost of issuing seasoned equity. Firms with more liquid shares are on average able to issue new equity at lower costs than their less liquid counterparts. This relation is interpreted as economically meaningful and important. The intricate and multifaceted concept of market liquidity is explained and discussed along with the wide variety of measures in existence to capture and quantify it. The total costs of a seasoned equity offering (SEO) are argued to consist of direct and indirect costs. The direct cost refers primarily to the gross fees paid to the investment bank which, along the lines of Butler et al. (2005), are argued to be significantly related to the secondary market liquidity of the issuing firm. This insight is confirmed in an empirical analysis of a sample of 145 European SEOs. The analysis finds that gross fees are significantly lower for more liquid issuers, controlling for confounding effects. The indirect costs of an SEO largely derive from the well documented SEO discount.
    [Show full text]