One popular related explanation for the high and severe underpricing of 65% during the Internet bubble (1999-2000) for the U.S IPOs, a peak never reached before in the U.S IPO market, is that underwriters could not justify a higher offer price on Internet IPOs. Even if these firms have a high potential of profitability in the recent future and they are operating in a new but very promising field which will generate high returns later, the underwriters can not justify this and propose a higher offer price. These firms are seen as young and operating in a new field which means that their offerings are risky and they propose risky shares. Proposing a higher offer price will not be accepted by investors and will make them fear the offerings.
The issuing firms have to propose a low offer price to incite investors to participate in the offerings even if they are thought to be risky. So, we can say on one hand, the newly issuing Internet firms are very important and are operating in a very promising field and then will generate high returns, but all this can not be justified by their underwriters and they do not find the convincing arguments. On the other hand, and since they are operating in a new field not very known and they are very young firms without a history of returns, they are thought to be risky. So, we are in the same explanation of risk due to valuation uncertainty which was proved to be ineffective determinant and explanation for the underpricing anomaly.
So to explain the severe level of underpricing during the dot-com period, only the inability to justify a higher offer price can be considered as a possible explanation, but the fact of young and so risky firms can not be used as a relevant explanation.
Page suivante : II-2-6)Price stabilization and partial adjustment: