Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of Shariah-compliant status and the presence of information asymmetry on investors’ demand for initial public offerings (IPOs) in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach The data regarding 260 IPOs dated for a duration of 11 years were acquired from the websites of Bursa Malaysia and Malaysian Issuing House. In evaluating the association between IPO oversubscription and the independent variables in this study, multivariate and quantile regression analyses were implemented. Findings It was found that Shariah-compliant status (DSHARIAH) had a significant positive relationship with IPO oversubscription. With this, it was indicated that Shariah-compliant status gains investors’ interests in subscribing to IPOs as these shares could be distributed to a wider group of investors. In the case of the proxies of information asymmetry, although firm size posed significant effects on IPO oversubscription, the effects were negative. Meanwhile, institutional investors posed significant positive effects on IPO oversubscription. Furthermore, it was indicated from the negative effects of firm size that less subscription is received by large firms which are perceived to possess lower information asymmetry from the investors. This is owing to the less underpricing provided by the issuers for their IPOs. However, it was indicated from the significant positive association between institutional investors and IPO oversubscription that the participation in the IPO among institutional investors would enhance the enthusiasm of investors for a specific stock and increase the probability of IPO oversubscription. With this, the winner’s curse hypothesis was supported. Research limitations/implications It is recommended that future studies investigate the compliance aspect, specifically the financial and nonfinancial aspects which may affect investors’ decision-making process for their investment. Practical implications With the availability of this study’s indicators in the prospectus, the findings of this study have provided useful insights for an issuer and underwriter to ensure a good subscription of its issuance. Social implications The findings of this study have provided further comprehension to investors regarding the essential information found in the prospectus during the decision-making process done for IPO subscription. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first articles which have proven the effects of Shariah-compliant status and the presence of information asymmetry on IPO investors’ demand.

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Drawing from the significance and implication that investors can use to properly comprehend the trend in market reaction from the new issuance of information, this study aims to investigate the market's reaction toward the announcement of Islamic bond or sukuk. The Islamic bond market provides not only an avenue for more dynamic capital trades and portfolio diversification but also functions as an engine that accelerates the growth of the Islamic capital market. This study specifically aims to investigate whether the announcements of sukuk issuance that carry any new information can create impact on the market's reactions. The overall sample time frame for this study is divided into three event windows; before, during and after the financial crisis in order to ascertain any unusual impact on the market's return during the 2007-2008 financial crises. The stock market return is measured via the FTSE and Bursa Malaysia's KLcI. In order to offer a more robust finding on the returns, this study re-measured the market return using Bursa Malaysia's FTSE EMAS Index as it is a better representation of the sample population. The data collected from Bursa Malaysia, Bloomberg and DataStream database will be then analysed using Brown and Warner's standard event study methodology of Brown and Warner (1985). Based on the 115 sukuk issuances between 2002 and 2013 (a period of 12 years), this study reveals that the effect of the announcement is significantly negative a day before and on the announcement date. On top of that, the result finds that there is a significantly positive reaction 30 days after the announcement of sukuk issuance which indicates that investors take a longer time to absorb the information from the sukuk announcement. The existence of a significantly positive reaction of stock markets during the financial crisis periods could be attributed to the conditions where the Islamic debt issuance might have sent an incredible signal about the financial position of the company, which have helped in solving the financial problem, especially during the economic downturn. However, the EMAS Index shows none of these significant results. The significant findings in this study (i.e., when uses the KLcI) are expecting to contribute clearer evidence and strategies concerning whether the information regarding sukuk can help investors to form a better investment strategy.

This article examines the moderating effect of information asymmetry on the relationship between parameters of lockup provision and flipping activity of Malaysian initial public offerings (IPOs). While the main purpose of lockup provision is to promote commitment of major shareholders for the well-being of the IPO issuing companies at least throughout the lockup period, its role could also extend as a signalling device. Information asymmetry is prevalent in the context of IPOs because information on the issuing firms is normally very limited that the evaluation of the firms’ true value becomes difficult. This study postulates that the lockup provision has a greater influence on flipping activity in higher information asymmetry companies than in lower ones. Using data from 370 Malaysian IPOs issued from January 2000 to December 2012, the results of the multiple regression analyses show that both lockup ratio and lockup period have significantly negative impacts on flipping activities. Since lockup period is uniformly longer (1 year) prior to the 2008 Equity Guidelines revision, the results imply that investors have a greater tendency to flip during the post-2008 revision period when major shareholders are perceived to be less strongly accounted for their firms’ performance. The results also show that information asymmetry moderates the negative relationship between lockup provision and flipping activity, specifically, in regard to lockup period.

This study investigated the determinants of commercial banks' profitability by selecting capital adequacy, credit risk, management efficiency and liquidity risk as the main drivers toward profitability of ROA and ROE. The main motive behind this study is to acknowledge the reasons of Malaysian banking in having different rates of profitability despite sharing similar loan growth in the country. A regression analysis was performed using the panel dataset comprising eight commercial banks from 2011 to 2017. To this end, the empirical data were collected from DataStream and Annual Report. Among all the determinant variables, capital adequacy did not show statistically significant impact on profitability. The regression findings revealed that credit risk, management efficiency and liquidity risk were among the most significant determinants that dictated banks' profitability. The variables exerted stronger influence on the profitability of ROE, when compared on ROA. In view of these findings, some suggestions may be functional for bank regulatory authorities to intensify and to sustain both robustness and stability of the banking sector in the country. This study had bridged an important gap in the existing literature by enhancing understanding of bank profitability in Malaysia.