TERRITORIAL DIFFERENCES IN COMPANIES' FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE IN THE CASE OF HUNGARIAN LARGE CITIES

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there are regional differences in the financial situation of businesses. The research is multidisciplinary, as regional science deals with spatial differences, territorial competitiveness and cities, while the corporate finance field examines the performance of companies. In addition, a management approach is included in the research, which examines further factors in the successful financial performance of companies (size, age, industry). The first part of the study is a theoretical review of the topics mentioned above. In the empirical analysis, we investigated the companies' financial performance at the level of large Hungarian cities. We examined cities with more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, which, due to their economic strength and institutional provision, can be considered as regional centres (Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pecs, Gyor, Nyiregyhaza, Kecskemet and Szekesfehervar), but Budapest was not analysed due to the distorting effects of the capital. In the sample, we have data of the TOP 500 companies (by sales revenue) per city, and variables of operational and financial data (industry, age, headcount, sales, earnings). We have examined with Variance-analysis, whether there is a discrepancy between the financial indicators of the companies in each city and what other factors influence the success of the companies. We calculated data from the average of the 2010-2014 business years, to reduce the impact of the possible different performance of a year. Dependent variables were the location (company headquarters) and the following corporate indicators: age, size category (large, medium-sized, small, micro-enterprise) and industry. Independent variables were the net sales, income before taxes and net income. In addition, we calculated other financial ratios, for example, ROS (return on sales), return on employee, as well as net income per employee. The results indicate significant differences in the financial performance of the companies in each city, but other factors play an even more significant role.