The first part of the study highlights the differences in relation to the offer methodologies (placing are definitely more frequent in the UK), the industrial composition of the sample of IPOs (that reflects the differences in the industrial structure of the economies) and the ownership structure at the IPO (most of the companies going public on the AIM offers only newly issued shares). The second part investigates the aftermarket, analysing the rate of delistings (more common in the UK, in particular due to takeovers) and the evolution of the main financial indicators, whose differences between markets are more limited. The level of profitability changes almost in the same way, with a reduction both in Italy and on the LSE. On the latter, firms use the IPO to rebalance their leverage, while it is used to gain access to additional debt in Italy and on the AIM.
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