Do Innovative Firms Leave More Money on the Table?

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between firm innovation and Initial Public Offering (IPO) underpricing in the Swedish stock market by examining 287 firms that went public on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm and Nasdaq First North during the years 2010 – 2020. An OLS regression model is utilized to analyze the relationship between underpricing, measured as the initial returns, and firm innovation, measured as patents and Research and Development (R&D). The average initial returns for the sample were (+8,16 %) showing that IPOs are, on average, underpriced in the Swedish stock market. While the connection between patents and underpricing was negligible, the results indicated that firms that reported R&D expenditures separately, specifying how much of their expenditures were spent on R&D, experienced a small decrease in IPO underpricing. Also, a slightly larger decrease in IPO underpricing was found for the firms that both had patents and reported their IPO expenditures separately. Thus, these results indicate that firms with a higher level of innovation are “leaving less money on the table”.