The Role of Cornerstone and Strategic Investors in IPO Survival

Abstract

We examine the impact of the allocation of initial public offerings (IPOs) to specific investor groups on post-IPO performance in terms of how long an IPO remains listed. We focus on the Hong Kong IPO market, where detailed data on share allocation are publicly available. In this context, we assess the roles of so-called cornerstone and strategic investors in IPOs, who agree with the issuers a specified investment in the IPO and enter into lock-up periods. We find that the presence, number and lock-up periods of strategic investors, and the prevalence of foreign strategic investors, significantly increase IPO survival (delay the time to delisting). By contrast, the impact of cornerstone investors is at best marginally significant. Our results are robust to using different measures of survival.