The aim of this paper is to highlight the main features of entrepreneurial businesses and to shed light on the determinants of the growth of small firms undertaking an IPO. For this purpose, we centre our attention on companies going public on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), a market dedicated to young and growing companies. In the paper we investigate the post-IPO performance of 665 listed firms that have gone public during the period from 1995 to 2006. In the work the factors influencing business performance are inferred from a broad range of variables (e.g. accounting information, CEO and board age, educational background and past experience). Our findings confirm that small companies listed on the AIM grow at a faster rate after the IPO. It seems that intangible assets are important determinants of their fast growth. The results of this work underline the relevance of secondary markets, such as the AIM, as a valuable alternative to traditional financial institutions in providing capital to small and entrepreneurial companies.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Did you know? You can create a compilation of all publications of a group of people, say alumni of a program, your students or memers of an association.