Análise comparativa de fatores determinantes da variabilidade do EBITDA e do EVA® de empresas do agronegócio no período de 2011 a 2022

Abstract

The Brazilian agribusiness sector has shown a history of continuous generation of trade surpluses, representing 27% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In order to evaluate whether reference companies in the sector have shown favorable results and abnormal returns, even in the scenario of economic recession, this research compared the traditional operational measure EBITDA with a valuation measure of companies, EVA®, as this second performance indicator measures the ability to create wealth for shareholders within an indefinite time horizon rather than a short-term view of results. The possibility of these two indicators of economic and financial performance showing divergent results and conflicting trends was the main motivation for their comparative evaluation. The main objective of this study was to identify the main statistically significant market fundamentals indices and indicators that determine the variability of Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) and Economic Value Added (EVA®) of two reference companies in the agribusiness sector (SLC Agrícola and BrasilAgro). To analyze different economic scenarios, the period from 2012 to 2022 was selected, which included the economic recessions of 2015 and 2016, with eight consecutive quarters of negative GDP and 2020, with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. For this purpose, panel data methodology was used. The results obtained suggest that the selected independent variables partially capture the accounting, sectoral, and economic performance of the analyzed period. A negative correlation was found between EBITDA and EVA® with Agro GDP and EMBI BR, and non-significant p-values in the periods analyzed, indicating that the performance of agribusiness companies tends to not be significantly affected in adverse economic scenarios