Privatization decisions of Australian firms: An empirical investigation

Abstract

This study revisits the determinants of Australian public firms that choose to go private. The new determinants hypothesized in this study - the presence of financial crises, stock salience and excessive foreign operations - are found to be crucial to a firm's decision to go private. While these determinants are found to be present at the time of the Initial Public Offering (IPO), it still takes an average of thirteen and a half years post-IPO for a public firm to back to being private.