Title: Performance of new equity issuers, venture capital and auditors' reputation

Authors: Faras Batnini, Moez Khalfallah

Addresses: Universite de Cergy-Pontoise, 33, bd du Port, Cergy-Pontoise 95011, France. ' Universite de Cergy-Pontoise, 33, bd du Port, Cergy-Pontoise 95011, France

Abstract: This paper studies the importance of audit firms| reputation during the IPOs of venture capital funded firms. The literature review reveals that venture capital firms must achieve a successful IPO in order to increase their returns, rather than sell their shares to a private firm. However, the financial market penalises these IPOs systematically through a depreciation of price, which is linked to an important information asymmetry. Thus, venture capital investors try to strengthen their reputation through calling in other investors (i.e. syndication) or very reputed auditors. In order to better evaluate the correlation between audit firms| reputation and returns of venture capital funded firms, we have focused in our study on the IPOs.

Keywords: performance management; initial public offering; IPO; auditors; auditing; audit firms; venture capital; shares; stock market; investors; reputations; share prices; financial markets; public sector; syndication.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPSPM.2009.029117

International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management, 2009 Vol.1 No.3, pp.228 - 244

Published online: 04 Nov 2009 *

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