With the growing importance of privatizations as a part of government policy, most empirical studies of these privatizations conclude that firm performance immediately improves following privatization. Privatization has been the most important part of the transition from the centrally planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe and has a larger impact on those economies than privatizations in other countries. However, few studies have looked at the performance of firms following mass privatization. This study uses 453 separate firms (101 firms privatized in both waves for a total of 554 observations), in the first and second waves of Czech voucher privatization. Using methodology from previous studies, we find that while the overall effects from privatization are positive, the effects vary by privatization wave, size, and industry. Firms privatized in the first wave performed worse (decline in performance following privatization) than firms privatized in the second wave. We also fail to find ownership concentration or debt as an important factor in restructuring the firm. I believe that the results are consistent with two hypotheses. First economic and political structure surrounding the privatization waves plays an important part in the success of privatization. Stable environments, both political and economic, help privatized firms restructure and improve operating performance as well as attract foreign investors and capital even in less developed countries, but in transitional economies undergoing mass privatization in rapidly changing and developing economic and political environments hinder firms from restructuring and improving performance following privatization. Results are also consistent with the hypothesis that firms with a longer preparation period prior to privatization, an “implicit seasoning”, improve performance following privatization.

Previous research has determined that lockup provisions essentially defer sell-offs of shares by insiders, and therefore cause a pronounced decline in share price at the time the lockup provisions expire. However, some IPOs involve follow-on offerings that may allow some insiders to sell their shares before the lockup provision has expired. Our objective is to determine how follow-on offerings alter firm value above and beyond the typical lockup effects, and whether the effects are conditioned by firm-specific variables. We find that follow-on offerings elicit an average market response of 3.21% over a three-day period surrounding the filing date. In addition, the offerings experience adverse effects as of lockup expiration that are about 3.75% worse than other IPOs, after considering other factors. Based on the share price response at the time of the follow-on offering along with the share price response at the time of lockup expiration, the cumulative effects for IPOs complemented by follow-on offerings are about 6.96% weaker than for IPOs not complemented by follow-on offerings. Overall, follow-on offerings may benefit some insiders who can circumvent the lockup expiration date, at the expense of other investors.

This paper tests a model based on Wall's (Wall, L., 1989. Journal of Banking and Finance 13, 261–270) hypothesis of agency cost reduction using interest rate swaps. We find a significant positive relationship between the risk of the firm and the reduction of agency costs measured by the continuously compounded excess return (CAR) of the firm. Our findings are consistent with Wall’s hypothesis and other theories of swap transactions and in explaining the existence and growth of the swap market.