The Unintended Consequences of Emerging Growth Company Status on Initial Public Offering Valuation and the Associated Auditor Risk and Effort

• In Event: Regulation, Audit Pressures, and Reporting

Abstract

The Securities Act of 1933 governs the going public process and submitting registration statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups (JOBS) Act of 2012 created several accommodations under the SEC securities laws for a new group of companies referred to as "emerging growth companies" (EGCs). We examine whether an initial public offering (IPO) offer price and the related auditor risk and effort are related to filing a registration statement as an EGC. We find that filing as an EGC is negatively associated with an IPO’s offer price. We test four accommodations that EGCs are permitted to utilize in registration statements and find that the IPO offer price is negatively associated with the greater proportion of permitted accommodations selected by the registrant. Our findings also suggest that an EGC utilizing one or two accommodations is associated with increased auditor risk, proxied by IPO accounting fees.

Authors

• Tiffany J. Westfall, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

• Thomas C. Omer, University of Nebraska–Lincoln