Abstract: According to some literatures, private placement is a tool for large shareholders to transfer their interests. However, under the bidding issuance mode of private placement, major shareholders participating in the subscriptioncannot make offers but only subscribe based on the bidding results of investors and according to the number of shares they have promised to subscribe in advance. Therefore, the room and way for major shareholders to control the issuance price will be restrained. Then, will the participation of major shareholders in the subscription of private placement have an impact on investors' quotation behavior and the issuance price? Taking the event of private placement with the unified price auction mechanism from 2006 to 2021 as the research samples, this paper tests the impact of major shareholders' participation in subscription on investors' quotation behavior and issuance pricingunder the competitive issuance mode. The findings show that the participation of large shareholders in the subscription releases a positive signal to investors, improves the level of investors' quotation and the number of subscriptions, thereby increasing the issuance price and reducing the issuance discount. The mechanism test shows that the major shareholders affect the issuance discount by influencing the shape of the investor demand curve, rather than the collusion between the major shareholders and the investors participating in the bidding, or the major shareholders hiding bad news before the subscription.

Key words: subscription by major shareholders, unified price auction, private placement, investor quotation, issuance discount