Firm characteristics and intellectual capital disclosure in IPO prospectuses

Purpose - Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) have been studied from different perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the type of intellectual capital (IC) information provided in the Spanish IPO prospectuses and the characteristics of the firms that go public and supply more information. The paper also compares the results with similar previous studies carried out in different countries. Design/methodology/approach - The database gathers Spanish IPOs from 1996 to 2007 (after which the number of IPOs in Spain plummeted due to the crisis). Content analysis is used to obtain information about IC from the IPO prospectuses and, afterwards, the authors apply different statistical methods to analyse any relation between IC disclosure and firms' characteristics. Findings - The paper concludes that the companies that provide more information about IC in IPO prospectuses are high-tech companies, larger firms and those whose previous shareholders do not retain the majority after the IPO. Originality/value - The authors have created an original database with the Spanish data. Moreover, this is the first study with these characteristics carried out in Spain, and some original conclusions are obtained, such as the importance of retained share percentage by previous shareholders. The authors have developed a statistical methodology suitable for the data. Both, the conclusions and the methodology will be especially useful for markets such as the Latin American ones, which are not as developed as Anglo-Saxon markets.