Research on pre-IPO financing sheds light on cost and performance of cross-border listings
Professor Ning Jia rewarded for research into IPOs and cross-border factors.
CFA Institute, the global association of investment professionals, has recognised Professor Ning Jia of Tsinghua University in China for her work on the resources and strategies that foreign firms conducting an initial public offering can employ to reduce cross-border information friction and its associated costs.
Professor Ning Jia’s study demonstrated that a pre-IPO financing relationship with investors from the country of listing can effectively mitigate cross-border information asymmetries at the time of the IPO and reduce the cost of foreign equity issuance. Professor Ning is an associate professor of accounting and the associate director of the China Business Case Center at the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University.
“Professor Ning’s research provides important insights to issuers and investors, especially as more and more companies in Asia Pacific consider cross-border listings to raise funds and increase their market visibility,” says Paul Smith, CFA, managing director for Asia Pacific of CFA Institute. “We are delighted to honor Professor Ning and Tsinghua University for this valuable addition to academic literature and to the knowledge kit of global investment practitioners.”
The CFA Institute Research Prize is awarded to research projects that will further improve the standards of practice of the investment community in the Asia-Pacific region. A panel of scholars selected the winning paper based on value to practitioners, quality of content, readability, and presentation of the paper. The prize was awarded at the Australasia Finance and Banking Conference in Sydney, Australia on 18 December 2013.
“As the leader in education in the global investment community, the award from CFA Institute encourages scholars to deepen their inquiry into the issues that matter most to the capital markets and to practitioners,” says Professor Ning. “I’m honored that my work has been recognized by industry leaders.”
CFA Institute also recognized researchers from Sungkyunkwan University and Sogang University in South Korea with the Asia-Pacific Capital Markets Award. The study by Professor Tae-Jun Park, Professor Youngjoo Lee and Professor Kyojik Song on trading before earnings shocks provides insights on whether institutional investors trade profitably around positive or negative earnings surprises. The study demonstrated that the trading volume decreases only before negative events because of information asymmetry among investors. They also find that institutions sell their stock prior to an earnings shock, whereas individual and foreign investors do not anticipate the bad news. This paper will help individual investors learn from the trading behaviour of domestic institutions after the release of the trading volumes, especially before companies announce their earnings, so that the individual investors can improve their profitability.