The behaviour of family firms in relation to the Alternative Stock Market (MAB): empirical evidence

The decision to go public on a stock exchange is one of the funding opportunities that family businesses have. However, the capital market has traditionally been restricted to large family businesses by the high costs of access and information requirements. In this sense, the emergence of an alternative stock market is very recent in Spain, since 2008 the Alternative Stock Market (MAB) was launched. This paper studies the knowledge family firms have in relation to the MAB, in order to identify what are the main advantages and disadvantages that arise in the case that family firms decide to trade. With this aim, we have conducted a cross-sectional analysis using a survey on a representative sample of 830 companies, 477 family firms and 353 non-family firms. The database includes qualitative information drawn from the survey and quantitative information from the Sistema de Analisis de Balances Ibericos database. The results show that the decision to go public into the MAB is an opportunity to overcome credit constraints, since it is a manner to access to a capital market designed for small-sized companies that would allow family firms to get an objective assessment of the company and immediate liquidity for their shares. The results also confirm that under certain circumstances family firms are more reluctant than non-family firms to go public into the MAB, due to their conservatism and resistance to change.