FIN-02-026

Conflicts of interest and efficient contracting in IPOs

September, 2002

Alexander Ljungqvist


ABSTRACT

We study the role of underwriter compensation in mitigating conflicts of interest between companies going public and their investment bankers. Making the bank’s compensation more sensitive to the issuer’s valuation should reduce agency conflicts and thus underpricing. Consistent with this prediction, we show that contracting on higher commissions in U.K. IPOs leads to significantly lower underpricing: a one percentage point increase in the commission rate reduces the initial return by 11 percentage points, after controlling for other influences on underpricing. Moreover, we present evidence consistent with issuers choosing commission rates optimally. Overall, our results indicate that issuers and banks contract efficiently in U.K. IPOs.


Alexander Ljungqvist
Institution: Stern School of Business, New York University
Email: aljungqv@stern.nyu.edu
Phone: (212) 998-0304
Fax: (212) 995-4233
Home Page: http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~aljungqv/

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