We examine changes in operating performance of Chinese listed companies around their initial public offerings, and focus on the effect of ownership and ownership concentration on IPO performance changes. We document a sharp decline in post-issue operating performance of IPO firms. We also find that neither state ownership nor concentration of ownership is associated with performance changes, but there is a curvilinear relation between legal-entity ownership and performance changes and between concentration of non-state ownership and performance changes. Our results are robust to different performance measures and industry adjustments. These findings suggest that agency conflicts, management entrenchment, and large shareholders expropriation co-exist to influence Chinese IPO performance, and the beneficial and detrimental effects of state shareholdings tend to offset each other.