Costo del capitale e valutazione d'impatto per le Società Benefit

[Autom. eng. transl.] With the entry into force of law no. 208 of 28 December 2015, the Benefit Companies were introduced in Italy. To date, autumn 2020, there are over 300 companies that openly pursue no longer the sole purpose of profit, but invest and employ numerous resources and skills to create an impact positive on an environmental and social level or for the benefit of other types of stakeholders. Through an empirical analysis based on panel data for a sample of 152 Italian companies observed from 2016 to 2019, consisting of a sub-sample of 38 joint-stock companies that adopted the Benefit form and a sub-sample of 114 comparable companies, an attempt was made to verify the impact of adopting the SB form on the cost of capital. Since the SBs are not listed, and since it is not possible to calculate the cost of capital by referring to current figures, accounting figures have been used. In particular, the existence of a positive relationship between some specific variables and the operating performance expressed in terms of expected return on capital (ROE) and expected return on assets (ROA) has been verified. The results of the regressions confirm the research hypotheses and show that Benefit joint-stock companies not only have a greater ability to remunerate risk capital, but are also characterized by better debt management and valuation of their assets.