The ability of entrepreneurs and other promoters of start-up businesses to exit through an initial public offering is an important component of a mature capital market. The returns on initial public offerings (IPOs) on the Shanghai and Bombay stock exchanges over a 14-year period to May 2007 are...

The paper reports an investigation of the returns obtained on a listed portfolio of entrepreneurial companies comparing these with a portfolio of listed small businesses and the stock market overall. The initial findings produce counter-intuitive results in that the returns on the portfolio of...