Litigation and Information Effects on Private Sales of Securities

We analyze PIPE (Private Investments in Public Equity) transactions in which the issuer experienced class action lawsuits. We explain the associated information effects measured by the announcement wealth effects and the discounts. Counting on a comprehensive, hand-gathered dataset, we show that the more severely litigated PIPEs are associated with higher announcement wealth effects and higher levels of discounts. We find that the issuer’s voluntary disclosure positively influences PIPE information effects particularly when coupled with auditor changes. We conclude that PIPEs do not necessarily constitute costly financing venues when mitigation actions are pursued