Delisting in Athens Stock Exchange

Abstract

The scope of this paper is to contribute to the question of delisting (both voluntary and involuntary), with particular emphasis on the initial conditions leading up to the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the firms. The case of Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) is examined, specifically the IPOs of years 1996-2004 and their subsequent performance (delisting or not) till the end of 2017. We find that the probability of delisting is positively associated with the size of the issuance and the degree of earnings' manipulation and negatively associated with audit quality, information transparency, and market timing. The effects of audit quality, size of issuance, and earnings' manipulation are accentuated in instances of voluntary delisting while the effect of market timing is more clearly pronounced in instances of involuntary delisting. Our results are robust to a number of confounding factors including size, profitability, leverage, liquidity, growth options, and corporate governance. Our work is not replication of existing studies; in addition, we choose ASE as in that capital market there were many delistings the last two decades.