Voluntary Delisting of Russian Companies at Different Stages of Corporate Life Cycle

Abstract

Nowadays, the number of companies leaving the stock exchange is steadily increasing. Researchers and practitioners continue to actively discuss the reasons for voluntary delisting and explore the factors that influence the probability of it. However, the results of existing studies are heterogeneous and inconclusive, indicating the need for further research. This
paper continues the line of research on the determinants of voluntary delisting by studying the delisting of Russian companies. Unlike previous studies, we identify and compare the factors that influence the decision to delist at different stages of the organization’s life cycle. We argue that delisting factors, although specific to each company, should remain similar for firms at the same stage of development. The company-related factors that we test include investment expenditures, profitability, stock volatility and book-to-market ratio. The study is based on a sample of 162 public Russian companies traded on the Moscow Exchange, of which 75 delisted between 2011 and 2019. The Bloomberg database was used to generate the sample of companies. Using the panel probit regression model, we found that firms with greater investment expenditures are less likely to delist at the Introduction and more likely at the Maturity and Decline stages. The results of our research also show that firm stock volatility had a positive effect on the delisting probability of Russian firms at all stages of their
life cycle, except for the Introduction stage. Finally, we demonstrate that companies at the Introduction and Growth stages are more likely to leave the stock exchange if they have a greater book-to-market ratio. The results of our study can be used by financial analysts and academics to analyze the probability of delisting of public companies at different life cycle stages.