Title: Italian SMEs and IPO performance. An empirical analysis over a ten-year period

Authors: Maurizio Dallocchio; Emanuele Teti; Matteo Perugi

Addresses: Bocconi University, Via Rontgen, 1 – 20136 Milan, Italy ' Università di Pisa, Via Cosimo Ridolfi, 10 – 56124 Pisa, Italy ' Bocconi University, Via Rontgen, 1 – 20136 Milan, Italy

Abstract: We investigate the performance of shares issued by Italian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) between January 2007 and August 2017. The empirical evidence shows that stocks traded on the AIM Italian market - the market of Borsa Italiana devoted to the SMEs with high growth potential - significantly underperform compared to other similarly listed companies over the same time span. The cause is related neither to the limited size of the companies - small firms significantly outperform larger ones within the sample - nor to the tendency to inflate the economic results in the fiscal year before the IPO, but our result is rather explained by the limited liquidity of most underperforming SMEs.

Keywords: small and medium enterprises; SMEs; AIM Italia; IPOs; performances; small cap.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2022.122021

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2022 Vol.45 No.3, pp.279 - 299

Received: 26 Jan 2019
Accepted: 01 May 2019
Published online: 08 Apr 2022 *

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