Analysis of the firms with foreign capital participation in the Spanish food and beverage industry | Análisis de las empresas con participación de capital extranjero en la industria alimentaria española

Spanish; Castilian. En este trabajo se presenta un estudio sobre la presencia de empresas con capital extranjero en el sector español de la alimentación y bebidas, con la idea de efectuar un análisis descriptivo y determinar así su relevancia sobre el total del sector. Además, se define el perfil de las compañías identificadas analizando aspectos como su tamaño, año de constitución, estructura financiera y actividad exterior, así como las correlaciones entre estas variables de estudio para detectar comportamientos económico-financieros por una parte y estratégicos por otra. La metodología seguida se sustenta en la confección de una base de datos a partir de las fuentes de información: Fomento de la Producción, SABI [Sistema de Análisis de Balances Ibéricos] y las páginas web corporativas. Mediante un proceso de depuración se ha conseguido identificar las empresas que reúnen las características objeto de estudio, seleccionando las variables para realizar el análisis descriptivo y determinar la importancia de la filial española dentro del grupo multinacional.

English. This study has the main aim to quantify the presence of companies with foreign capital in the Spanish food and beverage industry. Therefore we make a descriptive analysis to determine its relevance on the whole industry. We also define the profile of the identified companies analyzing some of their characteristics such as size, year of constitution, financial structure and foreign activity, as well as the correlations among these variables to detect economic-financial and strategic behaviours. The methodology used consists in the design of a database which includes companies with foreign capital participation of the food and beverages industry. To do so, we have used different kind of sources of information: Fomento de la Producción, a well known Spanish directory, SABI (Sistema de Análisis de Balances Ibéricos) which contains financial information and also different corporate webs. We have done a cleansing process in order to identify the target companies, and we have selected the suitable variables to carry out a descriptive analysis and to determine the importance of the Spanish subsidiary within the multinational group. As a result of this work we have verified that although there are few firms with foreign capital participation in the food and Spanish beverage industry, they have a great influence in this industry and therefore in the Spanish economy. To sum up, most of the identified companies have a majority foreign participation in their capital which shows off that foreign multinationals clearly prefer to impose their corporate strategies in the Spanish environment. Finally, we have obtained three kinds of subsidiaries according to their importance level within the foreign multinational group they belong to. The first group, formed by few firms, has not a very outstanding position in the multinational corporation, since they have the only role of operating in the domestic market. The second group is the largest and is more important than the previous one. The subsidiaries in this group carry out export and import activities outdoors and participate in few foreign companies in adjacent countries such as France or Portugal. Last but not least, there is a third group formed by a reduced number of subsidiaries that have a considerable position in their multinational group, because they develop a very intense foreign activity and they have many subsidiaries in other countries not necessarily nearby.