Ch. 5: Banks in Capital Markets 203
the returns on six portfolios of stock ranked by size and book-to-market, and the other
is the CRSP value-weighted market portfolio. Using feasible generalized least squares
to account for cross-sectional correlation in the stock returns of firms, the authors esti-
mate the impact of having an existing lending relationship with the underwriter on the
long-run returns of the IPO firm relative to the benchmark portfolios, controlling for
firm characteristics, IPO characteristics, and other factors. The authors find that IPOs
underwritten by relationship banks perform no better or worse than issues underwritten
by outside commercial or investment banks. This result is inconsistent with relationship
banks misrepresenting the quality of the firm’s that they underwrite. Second, for each
IPO underwritten by the firm’s relationship bank, the authors find a similar matched
IPO from the sample of non-relationship bank IPOs based on the dates of the IPOs and
the book-to-market ratios of the firms.Benzoni and Schenone (2004)form a portfolio
of long positions in the relationship bank IPO firms and short positions in the matched
sample of non-relationship bank IPO firms. The authors regress the weekly portfolio
returns onFama and French’s (1993)market, size, and book-to-market returns and ex-
amine if there are abnormal returns associated with this portfolio. The authors do not
find significant abnormal returns, indicating that relationship bank-underwritten firms
perform similarly to the matched sample, which is again inconsistent with relationship
banks misrepresenting the quality of the firm’s that they underwrite.
As in the pre Glass–Steagall period, the evidence from the late 1980s and beyond
suggests that conflicts of interest are not dominant in bank underwritings. The ex ante
pricing results indicate that when the firm and underwriting commercial bank have a
lending relationship, the public security prices are no worse and sometimes better than
similar issues underwritten by investment banks or non-relationship commercial banks.
These results are robust to different methodologies, time periods, and types of security.
Further, the long run performance of relationship bank-underwritten IPOs are no worse
than similar IPOs that are underwritten by non-relationship banks, which is inconsistent
with the existence of conflicts of interest.
3.3. Mitigating conflicts of interest: Organizational structure and syndicates
The aforementioned papers examine the trade-offs between certification and conflicts
of interest by analyzing the ex-ante yield of debt, the underpricing of equity securities,
and the ex post performance of securities. The evidence suggests that bank certification
at least cancels out and may outweigh potential conflicts of interest. While these studies
take as given, and attempt to quantify, the relative magnitude of these offsetting effects,
a number of papers examine if there are ways for commercial banks to take action
to reduce the potential for conflicts of interest. In other words, can commercial banks
credibly commit to certifying firm value in order to mitigate any perception that they
will exploit conflicts of interest?
Puri (1996)andKroszner and Rajan (1997)examine if the organizational structure of
the financial institution can mitigate potential conflicts of interest. During the pre-Glass–
Steagall period, commercial banks organized their investment banks as either internal