Performance of Newly Listed Firms: Evidence from Japanese firm and venture capital data

This paper investigates the effect of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) on firm performance. To single out the economic effects on firm performance brought about by issuing IPOs, we employ propensity-score matching difference-in-differences estimation. Using a unique firm-level panel dataset that allows us to identify newly listed firms and those keeping unlisted status, we find that the former showed better performance than their never-listed counterparts prior to their IPO while the difference in performance partly diminished after the IPO. This implies that firms' distorted behavior originating from, for example, empire building motives prevents newly listed firms from performing. This result is mainly driven by the sample firms going public during a "hot market". Using the information on venture capital (VC) investment, we also find that the participation of VC in investments exacerbates such negative impacts of IPOs on firm performance. The adverse impact on firm performance is more sizable among IPO firms which are invested in by VC syndicates consisting of a smaller number of less heterogeneous VC, or not including foreign VC. These results suggest that the timing of going public and the composition of VC syndicates are related to the post-IPO performance of newly listed firms.