IPO公司董秘职业背景、分析师首次跟踪与公司市值管理

IPO Board Secretary's Professional Background,Analysts First Following and Market Value Management

以IPO公司董事会秘书为切入点,本文比较全面地揭示了董秘职业背景在影响分析师首次跟踪以及市值管理中发挥的作用。选取2009-2015年创业板上市公司为样本,研究发现:聘请职业董秘的IPO公司能更快地吸引更多证券分析师的关注;IPO公司职业董秘通过影响分析师预测准确性,提高了公司信息透明度;聘请职业董秘的IPO公司同时具有更大的投资价值。进一步探索发现:董秘特征方面,对于兼任财务岗位的董秘,其职业背景在影响分析师首次跟踪以及市值管理中发挥的作用有所削弱;公司特征方面,对于信息环境较差的IPO公司,董秘职业背景在影响分析师首次跟踪以及市值管理中发挥的作用有所增强。本文研究不仅从董秘背景层面提供了公司高管影响分析师信息获取质量的证据,为打开分析师预测报告如何形成这一"黑箱"提供了新的视角。同时,对理解董事会秘书在投资者关系和市值管理中发挥的作用具有重要现实意义。

The implementation of the new Company Law in 2006 confirmed the important position of the board secretary as a senior manager of a company firstly in the legal sense. As the handler of the entire IPO process,the board secretary plays an irreplaceable role in the process of issuance and listing. As the head of the company＇s information disclosure department and the external spokesman,the board secretary is the ＂window＂ where the listed companies connect with the outside world. Coordination between the company and investors, dealing with information disclosure and other matters is the daily work responsibilities of the board secretary. Unless there is a private relationship with management,the communication between the security analysts and listed companies will not be able to bypass the board secretary. Many analysts＇ corporate site visits are even received by the board secretary personally. Could analysts get private information in the communication with listed companies and how much private information can be obtained largely depends on the company＇s board secretary. In other words,＂who serves as the board secretary＂ will have a direct impact on the accounting information delivery process and the efficiency of capital markets （Mao et al. , 2013）. However, the existing research does not examine this aspect. And only suggest that corporate site visit is one of the important ways for analysts and investors to obtain private information （Tang et al. ,2017）. This may be the reason why there is no conclusive conclusion on whether corporate site visit can improve the quality of analysts＇ forecasts. This article breaks the premise which mentioned above and believes that there are differences in the willingness to disclose information and investor relations management between board secretaries with different backgrounds, and the difference will affect the quality of analyst＇ follow-up decisions and forecasts, thus further affecting the value of the company. Using IPO firms＇ board secretary as a starting point, this paper reveals the effects of board secretary＇s professional background on analysts first following and market value management. Based on the data of China＇s listed enterprises in GEM from 2009 to 2015 ,this paper finds that： IPO firms with board secretary with professional background can quickly attract more security analysts ; IPO board secretary with professional background can improve corporate transparency by influencing analysts forecast accuracy; IPO firms with board secretary with professional background have greater investment value. Further studies find that for board secretary with financial positions, the impact of professional background on analysts first following and market value management is attenuated; for firms with poor information environment, the impact of professional background on analysts first following and market value management is strengthend. It should be pointed out that the impact of board secretary＇s professional background on analyst behavior does not exist only in the IPO phase of GEM companies. However,this scenario is more conducive to test the above problems. Firstly,the IPO of a company provides a brand new opportunity for us to recognize analysts following decisions for the first time, and can better exclude other factors that influence analyst tracking decisions （O＇Brien and Tan,2015）. Secondly,as analysts seldom track non-listed companies,the IPO firm provides a good experimental scenario for investigating analysts＇ first-time tracking （O＇Brien and Tan,2015 ）. Finally, new public companies need to establish an information bridge with investors, which is most evident in GEM companies of generally small size. This paper not only provide evidence on the effects of executives on the information quality which analysts access from the view of board secretaries＇ background,providing new perspectives for the ＂black box＂ of how analysts forecast reports are formed; but also has some practical implications on understanding the role board secretary play on investor relations and market value management which is of strategic importance for IPO companies to attract analysts and institutional investors faster.