No abstract

No abstract

This paper examines the impact on underpricing and firm market value arising from IPO firms implementing a range of governance attributes such as the separation of CEO and Chairman roles, the founder ceding CEO position, establishment of committees and board size. Furthermore I study the determinants of director retained ownership and the relation between this and underpricing. Using a comprehensive sample of 37 locally listed IPO firm's from across West Africa I find evidence of a mixed impact from the adoption of universally recognised governance mechanisms. Higher levels of retained director ownership increase underpricing in contrast to that of founders.

No abstract

The establishment of a successful stock market in a developing economy can be a major source of economic growth if it provides development finance by channelling domestic\ud savings and attracting foreign investment. However, this objective is not always met, particularly in very small markets where there are barriers to efficient market operations. A case study of Swaziland and Mozambique illustrates that any potential gains to the domestic investment community are limited if there is insufficient liquidity and the political economy is such that ownership is not truly dispersed but rather remains in the hands of social elites. This paper finds that potential growth of small developing markets is further severely constrained by poverty and wealth inequality and consequently the impact on development is minimal

This paper examines the performance effects of family ownership and influence on board structure and its composition in firms that have recently undergone an initial public offering (IPO) in the North African region. Using a unique and comprehensive hand-collected sample of 63 locally listed IPO firm"s from across North Africa we find considerable evidence of a sizeable differential between family and non-family controlled firms. I find considerable evidence supporting increased participation of family members at board level while contrastingly the wider dispersion of family ownership facilitates monitoring and surveillance and mitigates underpricing. Equally in line with the extended network and relationships involved in family firms business angels provide the optimal form of governance in contrast to the more formal private equity and venture capital industry.

We integrate the institutional perspective with research on the governance role of private equity firms in an investigation of Founder-CEO successions in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in emerging markets. Using a unique, hand-collected and comprehensive sample of 191 firms having undertaken IPOs in 21 markets across the African continent between January 2000 and August 2016, we apply instrumental variable (IV) Probit methodology and find that higher levels of private equity ownership are positively associated with the probability of the founder's retention as CEO, especially in the context of low-quality formal institutions. Further, in societies with high tribalism, higher private equity ownership is associated with an increased likelihood of founder retention. Voids in the institutional architecture underscore the importance of the founder as a key organizational resource for the firm and a source of institutionalized legitimacy, which in turn confers on the firm an ability to access required resources.

a b s t r a c tThis study contrasts well established liquidity measures, namely volume-based turnover ratio, related price-impact Amihud (2002) construct and the multidimensional Liu (2006) indicator alongside the Lesmond, Ogden, and Trzcinka (1999) proportion of zero daily returns metric in explaining bid-ask spread plus commissions costs. We control for six critical firm governance characteristics that impact liquidity alongside the market-based controls that are conventionally solely included in the literature. Using a unique sample of 12 Sub Saharan African (SSA) equity markets, namely Kenya, Mauritius, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Ghana, BRVM (Cote d'Ivoire), and then South Africa's ALT-x and Main boards we find evidence that state and foreign venture capitalist involvement in firms enhances liquidity while involvement of foreign partners, entrepreneurial founders, domestic venture capital and inclusion within an extended business or family network has opposite effect. The evidence supports the use of the proportion of daily zero returns measure in preference to other measures in capturing illiquidity. Furthermore we find that liquidity is closely associated with three of six World Bank Governance measures of institutional quality with these being government effectiveness, regulatory quality and rule of law.