The Role of Venture Capital in China's Listed Companies on the GEM: Certification or Grandstanding?

The role of venture capital who invested in China's listed companies on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) has been widely discussed in finance literature. There has been a great debate over whether VCs play a role of certification or grandstanding. This paper investigates the role of VCs playing on IPOs by using the listed company data of GEM in China between October 2009 and April 2011. The empirical study shows that VCs who invested in the listed companies actually didn't played the role of certification but grandstanding. The further research shows as follows. First, the companies who are backed by VCs indicate significantly higher underpricing, which is consistent with the grandstanding hypothesis. Second, the more VCs invested in the companies, the less underpricing, or the lower the first-day return of IPO, which suggests that VC's motivation for grandstanding decreases. Third, the involvement of state-owned VCs in the companies, the less underpricing, or the lower first-day return of IPO, which also suggests that VC's motivation for grandstanding decreases. Fourth, the less experience of non-state-owned VCs for IPOs, the higher underpricing, or the higher first-day return of IPO, this actually implies that non-state-owned VCs have more motivation for grandstanding. Finally, according to the cost and benefit analysis of VCs' investment, we find that the reason behind VC's motivation for grandstanding is to pursue the "success myth" with huge gains, and this may result in VCs paying less attention on corporate governance, which in fact may lead to serious investment loss of the investors.