Stock price performance of seasoned equity offerings: completed vs withdrawn

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate whether completed vs withdrawn equity offerings result in different stock price performance prior to announcement and between announcement and withdrawal or completion. Design/methodology/approach – Investigates stock price performance prior to equity offerings announcements and between the announcement and actual completion or withdrawal. Stock price performance is measured by cumulative abnormal returns (CARs). Findings – It was found that stock price performance is strong only for firms that later complete the offerings. Firms that withdraw their offerings have poor stock price performance even before the announcement. Additionally, it was found that stock price performance for both the completed and the withdrawn offerings is poor after the announcement. Contrasting with prior research, the results show that firms complete their equity offerings, even though their stock price performance deteriorates. The fact that this deterioration is significantly smaller (approximately one‐third) than that of withdrawn offerings indicates that there is an acceptable level of deterioration that firms tolerate. Originality/value – The paper evaluates short‐run stock price performance for a number of firms in the period 1984‐2000.