Dividend initiations and long-run IPO performance

Dividend initiations are an economically significant event that has important implications for a firm's future financial capacity. Given the market's expectation of a consistent payout, managers of IPO firms must approach the initial dividend decision cautiously. We compare the long-run performance of IPO firms that initiated a dividend with that of similarly matched non-payers, and find robust results that firms which initiated a dividend perform significantly better up to five years after the initiation date. Further tests show that the post-initiation firm performance is explained mostly by dividend theory of signalling rather than free cash flow.