Share allocations and performance of KLSE second board IPOs

We analyze share allocations in the Malaysian IPO market, which provide a unique instrument of economic policy for wealth redistribution amongst different ethnic groups. For a sample of Second Board IPOs, we find that Bumiputera investors and the Malaysian public receive almost an equal allocation and make similar profits per issue. However, institutional Bumiputera investors are allocated a significantly smaller proportion of the most underpriced issues and a significantly higher proportion of overpriced issues. IPOs with a higher share allocation to retail Bumiputera investors perform best in both the short and long run.