Going Public: The Theory and Evidence on How Companies Raise Equity Finance

Rating:
Summary: a good interpretation of the academic literature
Review: Financial economists (academics) have an interesting way of interpreting the world. When it comes to IPOs, what practitioners think and do and what the academics "think" that they do are often different.

This book is a solid contribution for those who what the academic IPO literature interpreted for them. It succeeds admirably at what it does, which is to interpret the findings of a lot of published studies in the finance journals that are hard to wade through unless you are a PhD in economics.

I teach finance to MBAs and this book was an excellent review and synthesis for me and fairly accessible to my MBAs. I understand the book has been updated in '99. That is good, since this topic is still in flux.

This is NOT a "how to" go public book. It is a valuable conpendium of how economists think about IPOs.

Rating:
Summary: Good basic textbook on IPO's
Review: If you're lookin for an extensive overview of all the basic theories of IPOs, this is a good book. It's like an "IPOs for Dummies". Focus is a bit too much on Underpricing, however. I missed good overviews of Long Term Underperformance and Hot Issue Markets. Quite old (1996) so a lot of important work is not covered. New version was released 1999.

Rating:
Summary: a good interpretation of the academic literature
Review: If you're lookin for an extensive overview of all the basic theories of IPOs, this is a good book. It's like an "IPOs for Dummies". Focus is a bit too much on Underpricing, however. I missed good overviews of Long Term Underperformance and Hot Issue Markets. Quite old (1996) so a lot of important work is not covered. New version was released 1999.