Delisting Brazilian Public Companies: Empirical Evidence about Corporate Governance Issues

Abstract

This paper proposes to analyse the relationship between corporate governance and delisting process of public companies listed on the Brazilian Securities, Commodities and Futures Exchange (Bolsa de Valores, Mercadorias e Futuros de São Paulo - BM&FBovespa). The sample comprises 86 voluntary delisting operations in 2008-2012 period and a matching sample with companies that remained public, identified here as "comparable". A corporate governance index comprising four dimensions (ownership structure, ethics and conflicts of interest, disclosure and board of directors) and a set of 16 questions was used to analyse the two groups. As expected, delisted companies score lower than their comparable ones is the broad index. However, board of directors, disclosure and ethics and conflicts of interest dimensions didn't show statistical significant differences between the two groups. In the ownership structure dimension the issues related to concentration of control differentiate the groups. Despite the mean differences, corporate governance doesn't seem to impact significantly the chances to delist in a model with ownership structure and financial variables. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]; Copyright of Brazilian Business Review (English Edition) is the property of Brazilian Business Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)