- Title
- Essays in corporate governance, disclosure and valuation behaviour of initial public offerings
- Creator
- Hartnett, Neil Anthony
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2016
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This thesis comprises five empirical research papers published, in press or submitted to scholarly media. The papers are linked by their objective to better understand the disclosure and valuation behaviour accompanying corporate initial public offers (IPOs) seeking the public trading debut of their ordinary equity. The papers better inform our understanding in three important facets of IPO disclosure and valuation: the potential differential relevancies of (i) management earnings forecasts to IPO pricing and valuation behaviour (ii) corporate governance to IPO pricing and valuation behaviour and (iii) corporate governance to management earnings forecast behaviour. The papers are presented in reverse chronological order, with most recent (Paper 5) appearing before least recent (Papers 4 back to 1). IPOs face challenges as they transition to public trading in the capital market. IPO promoters have the opportunity to implement policies and mechanisms to help ensure a smooth transition and to maximise firm value. The board of directors is one potential mechanism to foster effective management and board information can also generate signals that influence perceptions of firm quality. Likewise, policies regarding discretionary disclosure can influence available information and signals. Earnings forecasts are one potentially important disclosure of this type. The five studies reported in this thesis explore and document the relevancies and interplay of these features. The Australian IPO market is sampled to investigate these issues. The studies contribute to the literature through (i) their more elaborate modelling of IPO board attributes, governance structure, director prestige and contextual relevance, (ii) the tighter design controls employed, (iii) the investigation of new research questions, such as whether governance affects IPO forecast disclosure and veracity (iv) the staging of the research within Australian markets and (iv) the contemporaneity of the work. In précis, a positive relationship is observed between governance structure and IPO underpricing and value but this appears manifested mostly in contexts where governance strength is posited to matter the most, such as larger IPO firms. Director prestige signals mitigate underpricing, consistent with information asymmetry theory yet their significance too appears contextually influenced, analogous to governance structure. IPO earnings forecast disclosure relevance is best described as contextual and these contexts appear to vary in cross section and temporally. Decisions to publish earnings forecasts are related to the strength of governance as evidenced by board size and independence. However such forecasts’ accuracy and bias are observed to be positively influenced not by such factors but rather the strength of audit committee regimes. Larger, more segregated IPO boards appear to foster forecast inaccuracy and overestimation bias, these behaviours potentially the manifestation of factors explained through contrasting hypotheses, including board inefficiency or more credible end-of-year reporting.
- Subject
- corporate governance; director prestige; earnings forecast; initial public offering; IPO; underpricing; thesis by publication
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1335945
- Identifier
- uon:27513
- Rights
- Copyright 2016 Neil Anthony Hartnett
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 144 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |