Impact of the Corporate Law Economic Reform Program Act 1999 on initial public offering prospectus earnings forecasts

Commencing 13 March 2000, the Corporate Law Economic Reform Program Act 1999 (Cth) introduced changes to the regulation of corporate fundraising in Australia. In particular, it effected a reduction in the litigation risk associated with initial public offering prospectus disclosure. We find that the change is associated with a reduction in forecast frequency and an increase in forecast value relevance, but not with forecast error or bias. These results confirm previous findings that changes in litigation risk affect the level but not the quality of disclosure. They also suggest that the reforms' objectives of reducing fundraising costs while improving investor protection, have been achieved.

Modelling the behaviour of the new issue market

This paper analyses the time series behaviour of the initial public offering (IPO) market using an equilibrium model of demand and supply that incorporates the number of new issues, average underpricing, and general market conditions. Model predictions include the existence of serial correlation in both the number of new issues and the average level of underpricing, as well as interactions between these variables and the impact of general market conditions. The model is tested using 40 years of monthly IPO data. The empirical results are generally consistent with predictions.