Financial impact analysis of going public at the Warsaw Stock Exchange: Using Fuzzy Set Theory to understand behaviours of mature companies

Abstract In this paper, we intend to contribute evidence in regard to going public financial impact and thus motivation on a sample of mature companies that launched an IPO at the Warsaw Stock Exchange between 2005 and 2015. First, we review recent literature focusing on financial and non-financial consequences of an IPO. Next, we use fuzzy sets and fuzzy reasoning to define a “mature” company and assess financial consequences of going public. Our main conclusion is that the majority of Polish mature companies use an IPO as a channel how to raise capital and accelerate their investments and growth. This contradicts many previous empirical studies highlighting that the main motivation of mature companies to go public is to use the capital raised within an IPO to rebalance their capital structure.