Signaling game models of equity financing under information asymmetry and finite project life

Abstract

We develop the real option signaling game models of equity financing of a risky project under asymmetric information, where the firm quality is known to the firm management but not outside investors. Unlike the usual assumption of perpetuity of investment, we assume that the time window of the investment opportunity has a finite time horizon. The firm chooses the optimal time to issue equity to raise capital for the investment project. The number of shares of equity issued to fund the project depends on the outside investors’ belief on the firm quality. The low-type firm has the incentive to sell overpriced securities through mimicking the investment strategy of the high-type firm in terms of investment timing and number of equity shares. On the other hand, the high-type firm may adopt the separating strategy by imposing mimicking costs on the low-type firm. We examine the incentive compatibility constraints faced by the firm under different quality types and discuss characterization of the separating and pooling equilibriums. We also explore how the separating and pooling equilibriums evolve over the time span of the investment opportunity. The information costs and abnormal returns exhibit interesting time dependent behaviors, in particular, at time close to expiry of the investment opportunity.