Paper Title
The Factors Influencing The Decision To List On Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange

Abstract
The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (The ADX) was established to help the mobilization of domestic savings for corporate investment and growth. However a large number of companies have yet to perceive the benefit of listing their stocks as outweighing the related costs. This is characterized by low domestic listings in the ADX in relation to the emirate’s economic size. This study investigates the motives and costs of listing. In particular it addresses the reasons behind the low patronage of stock market by domestic companies. The main aims of the study can be summarized in the following three important questions: (1) Why some private eligible companies choose not to list on the ADX? (2) What are the factors that motivate companies to list their stocks on the ADX? (3) What barriers to listing on the ADX are perceived by managers? To get to the answer of these questions, we go qualitative and survey the CEOs of all large and medium-sized companies (public and private) operating in Abu Dhabi. The collected data is separated and grouped into matching samples of similar companies that go public and companies that stay private. These samples then used to draw inference on companies’ listing decisions. To the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to study listing on the ADX. Therefore we hope that our results will provide useful insights for corporate managers, investors, the Security and Exchange Commission, regulators, academics and business researchers. Keywords: Corporate listings, Stock market development, Investor protection, Ownership and control rights, Information disclosure, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.