生命週期、分析師預測與現金增資偏低訂價

Life Cycle, Analysts’ Forecasts and Seasoned Equity Offerings Underpricing

本研究旨在探討公司面臨的生命週期是否會影響分析師的盈餘預測，進而影響現金增資時偏低訂價的幅度。我們使用Anthony and Ramesh(1992)的方法衡量公司的生命週期。實證結果發現，處於生命週期成長階段的公司，分析師預測過於樂觀，投資人對於分析師的預測亦存有功能性固著的現象。由於分析師對處於成長期的公司預測較樂觀，因此現金增資時偏低訂價的幅度較小。

This study intends to explore the effects of firm life cycle stage on analysts’ earnings forecasts and the underpricing of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). We divided samples into various life cycle portfolios based on the methods developed by Anthony and Ramesh (1992). We find that analysts’ annual earnings forecasts are optimistic for firms at the growth stage and investors naively rely on analysts’ earnings forecasts and firms at the growth stage will have lower SEO underpricing. The literatures of accounting and finance show that the analysts’ forecasts are generally optimistic. These literatures explore the reason in terms of the economic incentive perspective and the perception bias perspective. In order to pursue the business with the investment bank, these related analysts intend to announce the optimistic earnings forecasts (Dugar and Nathan, 1995; Lin and McNichols, 1998a). Besides, the other reason is that the analysts response excessively for good news but moderately for bad news. The life cycle stage of firms may affect the analysts’ annual earnings forecasts. The firm value is composed of “assets in place” and “growth opportunity” (Myer, 1977). Their relative percentage of firm value will be different at different firm life cycle stage. However, will the life stage of firms be considered in analysts’ annual earnings forecasts? This is the first issue of this study. The second issue is if the investor can see though the predicable bias of analysis’ forecasts or naively rely and neglect to adjust for the bias in these forecasts. Will firms at different life stages influence SEO effectiveness after evaluation by analysts and reaction to the market? Because firms at different life cycle stage have different extent of capital requirement, for example, at the growth stage, firms usually owns more growth opportunity and intend to raise funds from market to pursue future development, it may affect SEO underpricing. Thus, the third issue of this study is to explore the influence of firm life cycle stage on SEO underpricing by employing the underpricing as the index of SEO effectiveness. Further, we explore if the interaction effects of analysts’ forecast errors and firm life cycle stage exist in firm’s SEOs. The empirical results are divided into three points as follows. First, analysts’ annual earnings forecasts are systematically optimistic for SEO firms at the growth stage. Second, investors naively rely on analysts’ earnings forecasts and neglect to adjust for the predictable bias in these forecasts. Finally, firms at the growth stage accompanied by lower analysts’ forecast errors will have lower SEO underpricing. The two factors of firm life stage and analysts’ forecast errors have interaction effects.