Why Do U.S.-Listed Chinese Firms Go Private?

2012

The period 2010-2012 saw a dramatic increase in the number of Chinese firms listed in the United States announcing deals to delist and go private. We argue that accounting scandals and legal uncertainties involving Chinese firms in recent years may have caused outside investors to struggle to distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent firms. As a result some legitimate Chinese companies may have become undervalued, which arguably has given them a heightened incentive to go private. We examine all the companies that announced going-private deals during this period and find evidence that firms that go private tend to do so after a prolonged period of negative excess stock returns relative …