Capital Structure As The Key Factor Of Success: An Empirical Analysis On The Italian Small And Medium Enterprises

The aim of this work was to prove that it is fundamental for a company to have a virtuous financial management and an efficient capital structure in order to success in its competitive arena. To demonstrate this, it has been chosen a champion of fifty-two enterprises, previously selected by Assolombarda as an example of associated companies that successfully overcame the 2008 financial crisis. Once calculated the most important financial ratios for each of the companies, these have been benchmarked with the data obtained by the study conducted by Mediobanca on a champion of 2025 Italian Enterprises. As a result the initial hypothesis of a common virtuous financial structure has been verified. In addition, the work is focused on the role of the Small and Medium Enterprises and in the first part of the thesis there is an analysis of the peculiarities and the scenarios that the Italian SMEs are facing, among with a focus on how the crisis has provoked the need of a tougher banking regulation and how this will affect the Small and Medium Enterprises. To this it follows the empirical analysis on the Assolombarda’s champion. What resulted, is that the companies considered have proper financial structures that guarantee a good safety buffer in case of turmoils, that bring values to their operations, giving room to invest in research and innovation. These are the Small and Medium Enterprises that brings a real value to a country’ s economic system and thus must be the target that all the other players aim to achieve.