Latin American Capital Markets

ACCESS TO FINANCING FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES 409Table 12-7 I Benefits of Floating for Medium-Size| CompaniesBenefitPercentAvailability of capital 41Acquisition opportunities 23Higher profile 22Cost of capital 12Exit opportunitiesI INoneI IOptions granted to employees 8Source: Grant Thornton (2002).Table 12-8 I Barriers to Floatation for Medium-I Size CompaniesBarrierPercentSize of company 44Not relevant 36Time-consuming 20Entry criteria 15Equity dilution 15Expense 15Low market valuations 10Lack of liquidity 9Vetting by exchange 4was booming in both Europe and the United States.The boom in these sectors continued,although a drop in stock values followed, until September 2000, when internationalmarkets began to lose confidence in dotcom companies and many of themwent out of business.In terms of the number of companies listed, AIM has been the most successfulmarket for small and medium-size enterprises in Europe. It had 324 companieslisted in 1999,437 in 2000, and 580 in 2001 (for comparison purposes, NASDAQ had4,396 listed companies during the same period). By the end of 2001 ,the Neuer Markthad 310 listed companies. However, the market capitalization of these companies wasmuch higher than that of those on AIM (Grant Thornton 2002). Certain companieson the markets have an unusually high market capitalization that can lead to a distortionof the overall picture. According to Grant Thornton (2002), in terms of adjustedCopyright © by the Inter-American Development Bank. All rights reserved.For more information visit our website: www.iadb.org/pub