Transaction costs, information asymmetry and share issuance.

Summary This thesis explores the link between transaction costs, asymmetric information and equity issuance. First, we analyze the impact of stock liquidity on the characteristics of issues and show that it is an important determinant of the choice of the issuance procedure. We observe that the pure public issue and the issue with guaranteed rights are the most expensive procedures but also the ones that improve liquidity the most. Second, we analyze the strategic behavior of the guarantor bank and the shareholders during the subscription period of a rights issue and show that they apply selling pressure on the secondary market of the securities generating negative abnormal returns. Furthermore, we observe that rights trade at a price below their intrinsic value. Finally, we document the presence of informed agents before a rights issue who reflect their information in their orders, thus contributing to the informational efficiency of prices. These results provide a better understanding of informed trading around capital increases and the choice of issuance terms.