Board characteristics and the amount of capital raised in the Malaysian IPO market

This study examines the impact of board characteristics on the amount of capital raised through an IPO for a sample of 220 Malaysian IPOs over the period of 2005-2015, applying both ordinary least squares (OLS) and quantile regression (QR) techniques. The OLS results show that board with ethnic Malay directors has a significant and positive association with the amount of capital raised, while a weak significance is found for board size. However, the QR results reveal that other than board ethnicity, other board characteristics namely board size, board independence and CEO duality are significantly associated with the amount of capital raised. The additional results suggest that QR provides a more insightful and full picture into the association than does OLS. The overall empirical evidence lends support to the resource dependence role of the board of directors at the time of an IPO.