The decision to delist. International empirical evidence

Over the last 20 years, the empirical literature has paid a great deal of attention to firms\u2019 delisting decisions, commonly defined as \u201cgoing private transactions\u201d (GPT) or \u201cpublic-to-private\u201d (PTP) operations. This chapter aims to review the empirical literature on the topic by analyzing 40 studies, mainly published in the last 20 years, and the intention is to give a synoptic view that is as complete as possible by referring to the methodological aspects of empirical tests, the hypotheses, and their consistency with the results obtained. There are essentially three streams of empirical literature on delisting. The first one studies, in voluntary delisting the link between the decision to undertake the operation and the determinants in accordance with the different theoretical models (see Sect. 1.4 for these models). These determinants mainly pertain to the firm\u2019s financial structure and performance characteristics, business characteristics, and stock liquidity. The other two strands highlight the reasons that lead to involuntary delisting and study the effects of delisting on firm value. With reference to this general framework, the chapter is organized as described below. Section 3.2 takes into account the empirical methodologies adopted in the studies examined, as well as their size in terms of geographical coverage and time period of analysis. Subsequent sections analyze the main results. For voluntary delistings, we distinguish them according to determinants and the aim is to quantify the robustness of the hypotheses that have obtained more robust empirical evidence (Sect. 3.3). The last two sections provide a summary of the studies that have investigated the reasons for involuntary delisting and the impact of delisting on a firm\u2019s value