Does institutional trading affect underwriting?

This paper investigates the impact of institutional trading on SEO lead underwriter choice. We measure the trading intensity of the lead investment bank in several different ways and find that bank trading has a significant effect on underwriter choice. A bank that concentrates its trading in particular stocks has an improved probability of earning the underwriting mandate in those stocks. We also find that the trading intensity of the lead bank has a significant effect on SEO underpricing and the composition of the underwriting syndicate. We attribute these results to the fact that banks that are large and active traders in an issuer's stock have a competitive advantage in marketing to the current shareholder base. For smaller banks, we show that concentrating the bank's own trading in the issuer's stock produces similar effects.