کسب منابع مالی از بازارهای سرمایه خارجی: بررسی عوامل موثر بر عرضه اولیه عمومی خارجی

An increasing number of firms are making initial public offerings in foreign markets to circumvent constraints in the availability of capital and to provide an exit for their investors. However, previous research on foreign initial public offerings and their determinants is very limited. In this paper, we contribute to this literature by demonstrating that international experience of the management team and pre-IPO ownership by foreign investors are positively related to foreign initial public offerings. We test our hypotheses using data on initial public offerings of European companies from 1991–2001. The results support our hypotheses. The findings have important implications for entrepreneurs, investors, and public policy.

In the late 1990's, the opportunities for European companies to acquire equity financing either from venture capital organizations or from public markets improved considerably. Increasing numbers of firms also made their initial public offerings in a foreign market both to circumvent constraints in the availability of capital and to provide an exit for their investors. However, previous empirical research on foreign initial public offerings, and particularly their inter-relationships with pre-IPO financing, is very limited. In this paper, we contribute to the body of research on financing strategies of entrepreneurial ventures by demonstrating that foreign venture capitalists and corporate investors as well as international experience are positively related to foreign initial public offerings. We test our hypotheses by employing data on foreign and domestic initial public offerings by European companies from 1991–2001. The results support our hypotheses. Our findings on the increasing share of foreign listings, and our results concerning the effect of foreign pre-IPO ownership and international experience on the likelihood of foreign listing, have important implications for public policy. Prior research on venture capital markets has argued that venture capital is likely to flourish only if venture capitalists can exit from a successful portfolio company through an initial public offering (IPO), which requires an active and liquid stock market. In Europe, political action has been taken to allow the flow of funds across borders as a way to stimulate the creation of pan-European exchanges and more diverse financing sources. Our findings suggest, however, that this approach is insufficient because of home bias. Before such cross-border flows can be created, an equivalent effort must be put into stimulating more cross-border venture capital. Despite the increased share of foreign initial public offerings, we find evidence of home bias, which limits the usability of foreign stock exchanges as exit markets. However, our research also suggests that there is an important mechanism for lowering the boundaries for foreign initial public offerings. In our empirical research of European companies' listings in foreign stock exchanges, we find that pre-IPO ownership by foreign investors increases the likelihood of listing on a foreign stock exchange when making an initial public offering. This phenomenon can be interpreted as foreign venture capital investment opening up new foreign exit opportunities in response to domestic public markets that are illiquid or inefficient. By easing the barriers to cross-border venture capital and private equity investments and by encouraging entrepreneurs to operate abroad, Europe would not only be investing in future growth but also establishing a basis for better capital flows. The results suggest that European exit markets have developed in a positive way for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, and that cross-border exit markets are available in different European countries. One can only hope that the drop in cross-border investment in the early 2000's and subsequent closing of newly founded alternative exchanges is only a temporary reversal to the gains made in European investment environment. For companies “born global,” the positive relationship between foreign listings and foreign ownership can provide comfort. Foreign venture capital and corporate investors may help lower the boundary for going public abroad, further enhancing the globalization strategy. However, entrepreneurs planning to reside in their home country need to consider the costs and benefits of foreign ownership at the outset. Reputable foreign venture capitalists can and do add value. But the benefit comes with the risk of driving company control abroad as the exit for investors approaches.

We set out in this paper to analyze factors influencing the decision of ventures to become public in a foreign exchange instead of their domestic stock exchange. We found that European companies have increasingly made direct cross-border listings within Europe as European secondary markets have developed. At the same time the importance of North America has lessened. The strategic options for financing young European ventures have clearly improved within Europe. When examining the determinants of foreign IPOs, we found support for our hypotheses related to high-tech firms and large firms having a higher propensity for foreign IPOs. In line with our arguments related to international entry capability, we found that international experience of the top management team and international operations are important determinants of foreign IPOs. We also found that both foreign corporate or entrepreneurial ownership and foreign venture capital are associated with a foreign listing. To summarize, we received support for all of our hypotheses. Our paper makes several contributions to the literature. First, the paper is among the first studies to examine the determinants of foreign IPOs. To our knowledge, the study is unique in that it examines the role of foreign pre-IPO foreign ownership, the existence of international operations, and the international experience of the top management team in encouraging foreign IPOs. The few existing previous studies have primarily focused on financial variables available in various databases (Blass and Yafeh, 2001 and Bruner et al., 2004). To enable our more strategic approach and to test for the impact of pre-IPO foreign ownership and international experience of the top management team, we had to create a unique data set by manually collecting the needed variables from the prospectuses of foreign and domestic IPOs of European companies. The rich, hand-collected data enabled an examination of these several new determinants of foreign IPOs. Secondly, the paper contributes to the emerging understanding of international entry capabilities (George et al., 2004) by showing that international experience of the top management team and international operations increase the likelihood of foreign IPOs. While prior research has shown the importance of the track record of top management in IPOs (see e.g. Higgins and Gulati, 2006), our study is the first one to show that top management team experience influences foreign IPOs. Thirdly, our paper contributes to the emerging literature on cross-border venture capital (Mäkelä and Maula, 2005 and Wright et al., 2005) as the first paper to measure the impact of cross-border venture capital in encouraging foreign IPOs. Fourthly, the paper contributes to the research on venture capital policy, which has argued for the importance of liquid IPO markets in attracting financing for innovation-focused ventures (Black and Gilson, 1998 and Black and Gilson, 1999). Supporting some earlier arguments (e.g. Rock, 2001), our findings suggest that companies can partially circumvent the limitations of their domestic stock markets by making an initial public offering abroad. Our findings show that this strategy can be supported by foreign venture capital and other foreign pre-IPO ownership.