The impact of privatisation process on business performance of the selected companies in the Republic of Croatia

Abstract

Privatisation processes have begun in the last decades of last century. Many countries recognized the advantages of privatisation in the form of financial goals such as increasing state budget, lowering indebtedness and strengthening market economy. Furthermore, the presumption of privatisation is that private ownership is better for achieving higher profitability of a company. Financial statements are common expression tools for companies’ business performance and financial position. Since accounting information system is a system where business events should be recorded, main output of the system are basic financial statements. The main goal of this study was to investigate the impact of privatisation process on business performance on the example of the selected companies in the Republic of Croatia. For the purpose of the study, the theoretical analysis of privatisation effects on business performance was made. Other than that, the empirical analysis of the selected companies in Croatia was conducted. This analysis was performed in two ways. First, the analysis of the selected financial ratios before and after the privatisation process was done through quartile analysis. The observed financial ratios were gross profit margin, ROA, ROE, total assets turnover and total economy ratio. To gain the individual impact of the privatisation process a deeper analysis of the selected ratios was conducted on the same research sample. Research results based on quartile analysis indicated that there is a difference between profitability prior and after privatisation and the privatized companies are more successful than the observed state-owned companies. However, based on the individual analysis’ research results the hypothesis that privately owned companies are more successful than the state-owned companies is only partially confirmed.