IPO underpricing is an important factor used by investors to predict the profit from investment activities. Numerous empirical researches report the existence of IPO underpricing in various investment environments around the world. However, what the factors that result in such underpricing vary by country and those factors are still largely unexplored. This underpricing phenomenon is difficult to understand because various issues are related such as companies' performance, government policy and economic condition. Thus this paper investigates the average degree of IPO underpricing listed on the Malaysian Stock Exchange (MSE) using data from 476 IPOs that occurred from 2000 to 2011. MSE is a unique stock exchange because it has two types of boards which are the shariah-compliant board and the non shariah-compliant board. 89 percent of the IPO companies are listed on the shariah-compliant board. This paper has two objectives. Firstly, this paper investigates the average degree of IPO underpricing for shariah-compliant companies and non shariah-compliant companies. Secondly, this paper investigates the impact of underwriter reputation and risk factors on the average degree of IPO underpricing. The results show that the average degree of IPO underpricing for shariah-compliant companies is 28.82 percent which is quite similar to that of non shariah-compliant companies which is 26.63 percent. Using multiple linear regression analysis this study finds that the IPO underpricing for shariah-compliant companies is driven by risk factors.

The objective of this study is to investigate the long-term (one to three year) performance of initial public offerings (IPOs) for sharia-compliant companies listed on the Malaysian Stock Exchange (MSE) for the period from 2006 till 2010. This study examines why some IPOs companies have a positive, and some IPOs companies have a negative long-term cumulative abnormal return (CAR). KLCI index is used as a benchmark for measuring long-term performance of IPOs for sharia-compliant companies. The empirical results show that the long-term performances for sharia-compliant companies are performed better (16.81 percent) than their benchmark for CAR equal-weight and the result for CAR value-weight show a slightly outperformed their benchmark (-0.07 percent). The results also indicate that CAR for equal-weight and value-weight of IPOs for sharia-compliant companies are significantly higher over performing by 14.58 percent and 4.11 percent respectively in the year 2006. While the results in 2007 (-1.34 percent) and 2008 (-3.43 percent) for value–weight are underperformed. This study also found that the underpricing, offer price, offer size, market type, trading/service industry, consumer product industry, property industry and REIT industry were statistically significant.

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