European companies and Sarbanes-Oxley 2344



  • Does anyone have a list of European companies that have delisted over the past few years from the US indices due to the S-O Act?



  • Publicis (french company) they used other excuses, but you know…
    KPN (dutch phone company) not sure



  • In practical terms it would be difficult to get such a list and I am not aware of anyone who would publish that.
    However:

    1. The number is probably not a high as you would imagine, delisting from a US exchange is not an insignificant task when you have more than (i think) 300 shareholders and there are few companies that would list on a secondary exchange to get investment from a smaller number than that.
    2. A google search on delisting and SOX will prbably throw out a few names.
      Ahold is one of the notables that delisted.


  • I do, but I do not have it with me.
    Go to sec.gov, then to the Division of Corporation Finance, then to International Reporting Issuers (or something similar). There is a list of foreign private issuers by Geography (i.e. country) as of the end of each year).
    You can also use the extended search function to search for forms starting with 15 (the form type for deregistrations of securities) and searching for the country name.
    About a third of issuers from the European Union and European Economic Area and Switzerland that were around at 31 December 2006 have delisted. If you review their press releases on form 6-K and annual reports, you will see that most of them leave due to the cost-benefit of the U.S. regulations not being right anymore compared to the small number of U.S. trading volume. Some delist due to being acquired by other companies.
    I am working on a study on those delistings …


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