Underpricing of European property companies and the IPO cycle: a note

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence for the ongoing significant underpricing of European property IPOs. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides recent evidence on underpricing for a comprehensive data set of 105 IPOs of European property companies. It starts with an overview of evidence and explanations for the underpricing of property IPOs and evidence for the cyclical nature of IPO activity. It then goes on to describe the methodology and data collection process. The results on initial returns are summarised. Findings – The paper finds that the current IPO market for property shares has been shown to be hot according to common definitions. Additionally, it is safe to say that the hot property securities market has caused to some extent a hot IPO market with property indices averaging 10.69 per cent during the 100 days prior to the IPO compared to 4.65 per cent for the general equity market indices. However, the recovery in Western European property markets and lack of quality property stock in Eastern European countries has created a large financing need for property companies which can be met by going public. Thus, supply side aspects are more likely than market‐timing characteristics to be the major driver behind the current hot IPO market. Originality/value – The paper provides evidence for an ongoing significant underpricing of European property IPOs and offers an explanation for why it is appropriate to classify the property stock market as a hot market.