3.2. Descriptive statistics
Table 1 shows the distribution of our final IPO sample by calendar year. Note that there
are very few firms in our sample from the first 2 years, 1987 and 1988. Table 1 also reports
firm characteristics just prior to or at the offering. The total assets of firms that go public
vary from 0.26 billion baht (25th percentile) to 0.96 billion baht (75th percentile)
(US$1c24 baht during our entire study period). Firms also vary in the length of their
operating history. The years of operating history variable is calculated by the difference
between the year that firms were established and the year that the firms go public, denoted
as ‘‘Firm Age.’’ Median age of the sample firms is 11.5 years. The mean size of the initial
public offerings is 59.5 million baht and is sold at a mean offer price of 91 baht per share.
Initial return is calculated as the difference in the first after-market price and the offering
price as a proportion of the offering price. The mean initial return of 68% is similar to the
58% reported by Loughran et al. (1994) using a shorter time period and is generally
consistent with their findings for other emerging markets.
To investigate the role of management ownership on firm performance, we calculate the
fraction of the firm retained by the firm’s original owners. Following Jain and Kini (1994),
the variable ‘‘alpha’’ is measured as the fraction of shares retained after the IPO by the pre-
IPO (original) owners and is measured based on the assumption that over-allotment
options, if any, are not exercised. The proportion of the equity of the firm retained by
original owners (alpha) varies from 14.87% (25th percentile) to 58.66% (75th percentile).
The mean and the median alpha are 38.56% and 35.28%, respectively.2 Note that this is