Offerte Pubbliche d'Acquisto: Fattori di successo e fallimento

3 Introduction “Shares are not mere pieces of paper. They represent part ownership of a business. So, when contemplating an investment, think like a prospective owner.” "Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy. Profit from folly rather than participate in it." Warren Buffet The demand for newly listed companies has increased dramatically in the recent decades, and, while attempting to satisfy it, the global financial markets have created only a few billionaires and countless personal bankruptcies. It is in the attempt of discovering the Lapis Philosophorum and avoiding financial and social disasters that research on IPOs is conducted. Analysis and forecasting are conducted both a priori and a posteriori, on the empirical-mathematical level as well as the behavioural one. The scope of this paper is to investigate, through the analysis of previous studies, how different variables influence the outcome of IPOs; after an exhaustive introduction of what IPOs are and how they are to be conducted, a brief analysis will explain how the heterogeneous interpretation of information may influence the behaviour and choices of investors. The broader part of this paper will focus on the empirical studies, multiple regressions and scientific analysis of the determinants of IPO success or failure. Primary market investors tend to behave irrationally (Aggarwal and Rivoli, 1990) even when perfectly informed. How do expectations of the near and far future influence today’s choice of investing in a particular offering? What are the predictors of performance that can be used by specialists or blatantly “ignorant” investors and why do they differ? Is the prestige of the various participants in the IPO process relevant to the outcome? Why does the market structure generate different reactions depending on the rationality of the analyst? If a formula were to be discovered and the secret for locating “good IPOs” unveiled, the advantages would soon be eroded, since we assume the perfectly competitive market structure holds, and new arbitrage opportunities would need to be found.