Why do companies delist voluntarily from the stock market?

We analyse the motives and market valuation of various forms of stock market delisting. We show that firms that delist voluntarily are likely to have come to the market to rebalance their leverage rather than to finance their growth opportunities. During their public life, their leverage remained very high, they could not raise equity capital, and their profitability, growth opportunities, and trading volume declined substantially. Their stock prices decrease significantly on and before the announcement date. These results hold even after controlling for agency, asymmetric information, and liquidity effects, and suggest that firms delist voluntarily when they fail to benefit from listing.