We study how group affiliation, a firm being a member of a business group, affects earnings management around initial public offerings (IPOs) in nine Asian countries. Our empirical evidence shows that group-affiliated IPOs have lower discretionary accruals than non-group IPOs, by about 3% of total assets. Our results suggests that group-affiliated IPO issuers in Asia can raise funds more easily than non-group issuers, and as a result they have a lower need to manipulate earnings.