Factors Influencing Follow-on Public Offering of Shipping Companies From Investor Perspective – A Hybrid Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

Abstract

The shipping industry transports nearly 80% of the goods worldwide and requires large funding. The shipping industry shifted from debt to equity as the source of funding in the last decade. Because most shipping companies already had their initial public offering before 2013, these companies tend to engage in follow-on equity offerings (FPO). However, the challenge faced by the shipping companies is the lack of knowledge on successful FPO. The purpose of this study is to identify the most influential factors affecting shipping companies’ FPO from the investor perspective. This research applies a hybrid multiple-criteria decision-making model integrating the fuzzy-Delphi method and Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory, processing survey responses covering four dimensions and 16 criteria from 33 investment experts. The results show that financial indicator is the primary cause affecting offering condition, technical indicators. An increase in earnings per share would help the financial performance of the shipping companies to appear most attractive to investors.