AUTOMOTIVE STUDY 2025 / Šaroch (ed.) et al.

4.3 Results Based on the methodology presented above, the economic value added (EVA) generated by the automotive industry companies in the individual years of the period under study in the surveyed countries was quanti ed. e results are summarized in the following Table 4.2. It was found that, over the period under review, only companies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in total, generated positive economic value added. e economic value added of companies in Poland gradually declined to slightly negative values; thus, the operating performance of these companies essentially meets (rather than exceeds) the requirements of owners and creditors. In contrast, the Hungarian automotive industry performance does not cover the opportunity cost of invested capital (when EVA is negative over the whole period under review). Investments in the German automotive industry are signi cantly loss-making, as companies based in Germany, in aggregate, were only able to generate economic pro ts in the post-COVID year 2021. Table 4.2: EVA generated by automotive companies in the V4 countries and Germany between 2014 and 2023 (EUR billion) Country 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 EN 0,03 0,43 0,87 1,05 0,60 0,77 -0,02 0,64 -0,30 0,96 DE -28,87 -35,79 -21,90 -19,17 -16,63 -28,66 -28,39 10,82 -18,59 -7,67 HU -1,37 -1,27 -1,01 -0,67 -0,73 -1,16 -0,81 -0,66 -0,87 -0,74 PL -0,26 -0,07 0,10 0,13 0,05 0,13 -0,15 0,18 -0,22 -0,14 SK -0,04 0,06 0,24 0,28 0,25 0,62 0,16 0,33 0,15 0,35 Source: Own calculations based on data from Orbis database - Bureau van Dijk, ECB and Damodaran Online e results of the comparison of ROCE and WACC between 2014 and 2023 in the V4 countries and in Germany as a key „stable core country“ based on hierarchical clustering are visualized using dendrograms (see Figures 4.3 and 4.4). Euclidean distance was used to measure di erences between countries. Figure 4.2 shows that Poland (PL) and Slovakia (SK) are clustered at the lowest level, indicating a very similar evolution of ROCE in these two countries. e Czech Republic (CZ) joins this group at a slightly higher level, suggesting a close but somewhat less pronounced similarity in value creation among these three countries. Hungary (HU) and Germany (DE) are linked at a lower level than the CZ-PL-SK cluster, implying some degree of similarity between them. However, their ROCE evolution di ers from that of the other V4 countries. Finally, the CZ-PL-SK group is connected to HU and DE at a higher level, con rming that the evolution of ROCE in these three countries follows a di erent pattern compared to HU and DE. ese ndings are consistent with the observed ROCE values. the highest ROCE value is recorded by companies in the Czech Republic, with an average of 9.7% over the period under review. e trend was upward until 2017, peaking at 13.5% that year, followed by a gradual decline. A notable drop occurred in the pandemic year 2020, with a more signi cant recovery only in 2023, reaching 10.7%. A comparable pattern appears in PL and SK, though at

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