Only 8% of Portugal’s companies are financially healthy

A study by Five Credit based on 200,000 companies in Portugal has concluded that only 8% of them are in a good financial state in terms of three indicators – financial autonomy, liquidity, and profitability.

The findings of the study were made by Francisco Franco, the Founder and Managing Partner of Five Credit at the event ‘Impulso PME’ (SME Impulse) organised by the online news source ECO together with Five Credit.

The event was dedicated to the financing and growth of SMEs, bringing together managers, economists and representatives from the financial sector to discuss data, trends and solutions.

“The aim was to reach companies and make their day-to-day operations easier”, said Mafalda Duarte, CEO of Five Credit.

Some 82% showed mixed indicators in terms of financial health, strengthening the need for a deeper and more segmented analysis.

Filipe de Botton, Chairman of Logoplaste said that the Portuguese market, because of its size, created restrictions to increasing scale.

One solution suggested was “verticalisation” according to Nuno Martins, an Executive Commission member at bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD). “”If we can do the entire journey, from the customer to production, we can gain scale even in a small market”.