The Long-Run Stock Performance of Privatization IPOs

This paper compares the long-run buy-and-hold returns of privatization initial public offerings (IPOs) to those of the domestic stock markets of respective countries using a sample of 241 privatization IPOs from 41 countries. The evidence indicates that the privatization IPOs significantly outperform their domestic stock markets if the returns are equally-weighted while value-weighted returns show a sharp reduction in performance. However, there are substantial variations in the long-run performance of privatization IPOs across industries, issuing countries, issue period, and the origin of commercial law of the country. This paper also analyzes the cross-sectional determinants of the long-run buy-and-hold returns of privatization shares. The results indicate that the long-run performance of privatization IPOs is significantly related to the proxies of policy uncertainty, consistent with the signaling models of Perotti (1995)