Essay from the year 2005 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: very good (UK: grade A), University of Glasgow (Department of Accounting and Finance), course: International Financial Management, language: English, abstract: Some non-American companies benefit from a US-listing and others do not even cross-list in the US. Several empirical studies show that foreign companies, which are listed in the US, are worth more. However, less than one out of 10 large public non-American companies float their shares in the US (Doidge et al., 2004). Why is cross-listing beneficial to some companies and not to others? In 1997 more than 4,700 companies were internationally cross-listed. But, during the past several years this number decreased significantly by 50% to 2,300 (end of 2002) companies (Karolyi, 2004). Today more and more foreign companies acknowledge that they cannot cross-list in the US. Moreover, some companies admit that they are no longer even willing to cross-list, because of the high costs and strict requirements (Economist, 2005). Still, there must be a benefit for some to cross-list. A number of studies point out that the benefits regarding cross-listing include a lower cost of capital, access to foreign capital markets, an extended global shareholder base, greater liquidity in the trading of shares, publicity, visibility and prestige. On the other hand, these companies face costs, which might erode the benefits. Typical costs associated with a US-listing are the SECreporting, reconciliation of financial statements with home and foreign standards, direct listing costs, compliance requirements, exposure to legal liabilities, taxes and various trading frictions as well as investment banking fees (Karolyi, 2004 and Doidge et al., 2004). This essay aims to examine the empirical evidence regarding the merit of cross-listing shares on foreign equity markets, especially listing shares in the US. First, it critically reviews the conventional wisdom. Secondly, it examines the new approach of the cross-listing premium. Finally, it ends with a summary of this project and my own opinions.

This paper examines the hypothesis that non-U.S. firms cross-list in the United States to increase protection of their minority shareholders. Cross-listing on an organized exchange (NYSE or Nasdaq) in the U.S. subjects a non-U.S. firm to a number of provisions of U.S. securities law and requires the firm to conform to U.S. GAAP. It therefore increases the expected cost to managers of extracting private benefits, and commits the firm to protecting minority shareholders' interests. The expected relation between the quantity of cross-listings and shareholder protection in the home country is ambiguous, because managers will consider both expected private benefits and the public value of their shares. However, there are clear predictions about the relation between subsequent equity issues, shareholder protection and cross-listings: 1) Equity issues increase following all cross-listings, regardless of shareholder protection. 2) The increase should be larger for cross-listings from countries with weak protection. 3) Equity issues following cross-listings in the U.S. will tend to be in the U.S. for firms from countries with strong protection and outside the U.S. for firms from countries with weak protection. We find strong evidence supporting predictions 1) and 3), and weak evidence consistent with hypothesis 2). Overall, the desire to protect shareholder rights appears to be one reason why some non-U.S. firms cross-list in the United States. However, it probably is not an important determinant of the large recent increase in cross-listings, because legal requirements potentially deter a number of firms that do have a demand for equity capital from cross-listing in the U.S.