THE COMPETING-RISK ANALYSIS OF POST-IPO DELISTINGS

Abstract

This paper is working on one IPO panel data to estimate the predicting power of some covariates on future status of IPO firms after going public. These new firms could be delisted due to two major reasons, either acquisition or liquidation. Specifically, our study aims to examine how the possibility of each type of delisting could be determined. There are two main findings in this paper. First, we find that the inclusion of the aftermarket performance in a competing-risk model helps distinguish the impact of those covariates on the two types of delistings. For example, profitability increases the chance of being delisted due to mergers but decreases the chance of being delisted due to bad performance. Second, our evidence indicates that time-varying covariates may impact the delistings in different ways. For instance, profitability appears to affect the voluntary delistings only until last year before delisting. In sum, our paper contributes to the prior literature by shedding light on how voluntary/forced post-IPO delistings are determined.