The performance of newly privatized firms: The case of Portugal

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the pre and post privatization financial, social and operational performance of forty two Portuguese companies in most of sectors of economic activity that experience full or partial privatization through public share offering, direct sale or public contest, for the period from 1989 to 2009. That is, this work investigates, whether or not, the privatization of sate-owned enterprises (SOE’s) had caused improvements on the economic and financial health of those privatized companies, as it is suggested by the literature of property rights, public choice and agency theory. First, we document significant improvements on profitability, operating efficiency, capital investment, real output, dividend payout, treasury applications, activity levels and capital structure. Secondly, we experience significant decreases in employment after privatization. Third, we observe that, following privatization, the financial equilibrium (short and long) of firms was negatively affected. Lastly, our results are generally robust surviving the partition of the dataset into various sub-samples.