Factores explicativos del desempeño financiero de las empresas del sector de la piedra natural en España e Italia

Abstract

The world market for natural stone is dominated by China, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Iran, Portugal and Spain, with Italy's share being 16.20% and Spain's 3.30%. It should also be mentioned that, in both countries, the natural stone industry is a traditional sector, so it has an important role in the growth and sustainability of both economies. The crisis in the construction market and the COVID-19 pandemic caused the world natural stone market to experience a considerable decrease in production, which significantly affected extraction, transformation and distribution activities. Natural or ornamental stone is understood as those rocks that, once extracted, and after a process of transformation and elaboration, are in conditions to be used as noble construction materials, decoration components, funeral art pieces and varied artistic objects, preserving in an integral manner their physicochemical properties, texture and composition. Commercially, natural stone is classified into three categories: marbles, granites and slates; its economic interest lies in its various characteristics such as its attractiveness, physical-mechanical properties and suitability for polishing. The aim of this doctoral thesis is to analyze the factors that affect corporate profitability, both economic and financial, as well as those variables that determine financial stress scenarios. For this purpose, financial information from the accounting statements of all the companies grouped according to NACE code 0811 (Nomenclature of Economic Activities in the European Community: extraction of ornamental and building stone, limestone, gypsum, chalk and slate) in Spain and Italy was used. To establish the determinants of financial and economic profitability, a period between 2015 and 2019 was used, through the multiple linear regression methodology. To address the problems of possible endogeneity and omission of variables in the proposed model, the dependent variable is used as a regressor, with one and two lags, and panel data with fixed effects are considered after applying the Hausman test. On the other hand, to explain the probability that companies in the natural stone industry experience financial problems and business failure, a logit regression applied for a nineyear period between 2012 and 2020 was used. The results show significant differences between the two countries, with profitability being higher in Italy. Firm size, firm growth (measured as the change in assets) and the change in the country's GDP were found to have a positive relationship with profitability, while the level of indebtedness showed a negative relationship. The country's inflation and gender diversity on the board of directors of the companies were not shown to be relevant variables. In addition, negative company results for one or two consecutive years depend directly on the country where the company operates. Age and indebtedness positively affect the financial difficulties of the company. However, asset management, both current and non-current, inflation, liquidity level and legal form show a negative relationship when the company shows financial distress for two consecutive years. Although the literature shows that firm size is relevant to financial difficulties, the results of this research showed that this variable did not have a significant impact. This doctoral thesis constitutes a contribution to the literature on business performance by providing empirical evidence about the incidence of financial, macroeconomic and gender diversity-related variables in top management on the financial performance of companies belonging to an important sector in the Spanish and Italian economy such as the natural stone industry. The results of this thesis aim to help the top management of the company in decision making by indicating how internal resources should be managed in order to maximize their profits. The generation of short-term profitability can encourage investors to invest in companies with a strong market position. In this way, it will help organizations in the natural stone sector to avoid financial difficulties and thus business failure. According to the literature, studies of this type have conducted on groups of companies in general, and research on a specific sector is scarce. There is no evidence of previous studies of this type performed on the natural stone sector, so this doctoral thesis is a pioneer in jointly analyzing the corporate profitability and financial difficulties of companies from two countries that occupy an important place in the production and extraction of natural stone in the world.