An empirical study of IPO underpricing: Evidence from Chinese stock market

Initial public offerings, as one of the most important activities for firms, have raising massive amount of researches. Regarding China, the stock markets are experiencing a massive level of IPO underpricing, which leads to trillions of dollars leaved on the table. This study is conducted for the question why Chinese IPO are so heavily underpriced and the determinants of IPO underpricing, also the possibility of IPO be underpriced in China. We confirm again that Chinese IPOs are heavily underpriced and the average underpricing level is about 110%. Further, Chinese IPO will experience a negative short term return starting from 10 days after listing, and there are significantly different characteristics for state owned IPOs and private IPOs. This study finds that information asymmetry, proportion of state owned share and risk are the mainly determinants of IPO underpricing in China. Additionally, one of the biggest reason that Chinese initial public offering is underpriced so much is because of government participation, since we find that firms with larger proportion of government state owned shares will be more underpriced.