Voluntary Delisting in Italy. Are Italian Listed Firms Moved by Different Incentives?

The purpose of the paper is to examine the incentives and motives of Italian voluntary Public to Private delisting transactions between 2001 and 2011. Focusing on a sample of 53 industrial companies, we empirically tested if incentives acknowledged by main literature on the topic can be considered also for Italian listed companies. In particular, we tested for hypotheses related to Free Cash Flow, Leverage Potential, Decreasing Benefits of Being Listed, Limited Capital Market Efficiency and Dividend Payments. Results show that Italian firms are moved substantially by different incentives