Impact of European Funds on Value Creation of Portuguese Companies

Abstract

This work aims to highlight the impact of Community funds on the capacity to create financial value of Portuguese companies. We develop a theoretical framework with a reflection on various topics relevant to research, namely the importance of investments for companies, the concepts of financial performance and the logic of value creation, the metrics for value creation and the cost of capital. In addition, we have looked at several studies with similar research objectives to observe the methodologies used and the research results achieved. The study we developed looked at the 166 companies that benefited from EU funds in 2014 under the Sistema de Incentivos à Inovação, which is a part of the EU Incentives System for Research and Technological Development. To measure value creation capacity, we used EVA, since it is an indicator which allows you to easily measure the value created in each period and can be obtained directly from the financial statements of companies. The research results showed that the companies studied presented a greater capacity to create value, create employment and internationalize the activity in the financial year 2016 (although only job creation and internationalisation have shown statistically relevant differences). However, the statistical tests performed did not show any relationship among companies' best performance in the three indicators and the subsidies received, which means that, eventually, such positive developments have occurred due to other factors, such as the very favorable evolution of the Portuguese economy.