Red flags for IPO downfalls in New Zealand

Abstract

PurposeThe strong performance of New Zealand’s equity market and the Government’s efforts to encourage small investors to invest in initial public offering (IPO) firms raises two questions: should retail investors invest in IPO offers and what types of IPOs are worth buying in the long term? The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe authors construct buy and hold equally weighted portfolios of IPOs and peers based on sales forecast, market capitalisation, and price-to-book ratio. The authors employ four benchmark-adjusted performance measures: cumulative average abnormal return (CAR), holding period return difference, wealth relative, and excess return (α).FindingsIPOs underperform their peers over the medium and long term, with a five-year CAR ranging between −6.4 and −19.7 per cent. IPOs listed post-GFC show inferior benchmark-adjusted performance with a statistically significant average monthly CAPM α of −1.07 per cent (vs −0.13 per cent for pre-2009 IPOs). Over a five-year horizon, mature IPOs, IPOs with high market cap, high sales forecast, high leverage, low price-to-book ratio, and positive earnings forecast outperform other IPOs. Small IPOs or those with a small degree of leverage exhibit the worst five-year CAR ranging between −30.2 and −49.1 per cent. Of all IPOs examined, large firms, well-established firms, and value firms achieved positive five-year CARs of between 6.6 and 17.5 per cent.Practical implicationsThe results are useful for retail investors and financial advisors in making sensible investment decisions.Originality/valueThis study is the first to utilise book-to-market and sales forecast to construct peer samples and to identify the red flags for IPO downfalls in New Zealand. It covers the longest sample period (1991-2015) in New Zealand’s context.