The central bank released company balance sheet data for the fourth quarter of 2024 today.
Corporate profitability remained stable at 9.4% during this period, consistent with the same figure from the third quarter and slightly down from 9.5% a year earlier.
Profitability is measured by the ratio of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to total assets, according to the central bank’s data from the balance sheet center.
Compared to the same period last year, profitability in the private sector decreased in industries by 1.1 percentage points to 10.4%, electricity and water by 0.3 percentage points to 9.4%, other services by 0.1 percentage points to 8.8%, and in headquarters by 1.5 percentage points to 7.2%.
Conversely, profitability increased in the construction sector by 0.9 percentage points to 8.7%, commerce by 0.6 percentage points to 10.3%, and transport and storage by 1.3 percentage points to 14.6% year-on-year.
Public sector companies saw a positive profitability of 7.3%, up by 0.5 percentage points from the same period in 2023.
The financial autonomy of companies, measured by the equity’s share of total assets, reached 45.6% in the fourth quarter of 2024, surpassing the figure from the same quarter of the previous year, which was 44.1%.
This financial autonomy marked a record high since the series began in 2006, according to the central bank.
The financial autonomy in private companies reflects retained earnings across all sectors, the central bank stated.
In terms of size, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) saw their financial autonomy increase by 1.9 percentage points to 46.0%, while large companies experienced a 1.3 percentage point rise to 41.4%.
The autonomy of public sector companies grew from 36.9% to 37.2%.
Meanwhile, the proportion of financing in total assets decreased from 27.6% to 26.6%, indicating a reduction in corporate loans.
The cost of financing fell by 0.2 percentage points compared to the previous quarter, reaching 4.8%, marking the first decrease after nine consecutive quarters of increases.
Lastly, the coverage of financing expenses by companies (which measures the number of times the EBITDA exceeds financing expenses) decreased from 7.4 to 7.1 in the last quarter of 2024.
