Does a public-private partnership concession award affect firm value?

Mestrado em FinançasEm Portugal, desde meados da década de noventa, as parcerias público-privadas emergiram como um importante mecanismo para superar a insfractructure gap em vários setores, tais como o rodoviário, o da saúde ou da educação. Até ao momento, poucos estudos foram realizados sobre a experiência portuguesa em relação a estas parcerias. Além disso, a maioria destes estudos incidiram preferencialmente na perspetiva do setor público e, por esse motivo, pouco se sabe sobre o impacto financeiro destas parcerias relativamente ao setor privado. O Estudo apresentado avalia o impacto da concessão de parcerias público-privadas na rentabilidade esperada das empresas participantes. Para realizar este estudo foi aplicada a metodologia de estudos de eventos. Este método permite analisar se existe um efeito anormal no retorno das ações, associado ao anúncio da atribuição da concessão, nas empresas participantes, com o propósito de avaliar se o envolvimento nestes projetos cria valor para essas empresas. Se for expectável que a rentabilidade, atual e futura, das empresas premiadas com as concessões venha a ser afetada, o preço das ações altera-se logo que mercado toma conhecimento da atribuição dessas concessões. Por esse motivo, os preços das ações são vistos como indicadores sólidos do valor de mercado de uma empresa. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que, em média, o impacto do anúncio destas concessões no retorno das ações é negativo e, por isso, estas parecem não acrescentar valor ás empresas.Since the mid-1990s, public-private partnerships emerged in Portugal as an important and intensively used mechanism to close the wide infrastructure gap in several areas, such as transport, health or education. So far, few studies have been performed on the Portuguese Public-private Partnership experience. Moreover, the majority of the studies are focused in the public sector point of view concerning these projects. Therefore, the private party knows little about the financial impact of public-private partnerships. This study assesses the impact of the award of public-private partnership concessions on the expected profitability of a firm by using event study methodology. The previous method is implemented to measure if there is an "abnormal" stock return, associated with the announcement of the concession award, to determine whether the participation in these projects increase the firm's value. Stock prices are viewed as reliable indicators of a firm's value since they are assumed to reflect all the available information about the firm's current and future profit potential. Therefore, if any new information resulting from the concession award announcement is expected to affect a firm's current and future profit, the security price changes as soon as the market learns of the announcement. Results indicate that, on average, the impact of the concession announcements on stock returns is negative and suggest that the participation in these projects do not add value to the firms

Brazilian Flora 2020: Leveraging the power of a collaborative scientific network

International audienceThe shortage of reliable primary taxonomic data limits the description of biological taxa and the understanding of biodiversity patterns and processes, complicating biogeographical, ecological, and evolutionary studies. This deficit creates a significant taxonomic impediment to biodiversity research and conservation planning. The taxonomic impediment and the biodiversity crisis are widely recognized, highlighting the urgent need for reliable taxonomic data. Over the past decade, numerous countries worldwide have devoted considerable effort to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which called for the preparation of a working list of all known plant species by 2010 and an online world Flora by 2020. Brazil is a megadiverse country, home to more of the world's known plant species than any other country. Despite that, Flora Brasiliensis, concluded in 1906, was the last comprehensive treatment of the Brazilian flora. The lack of accurate estimates of the number of species of algae, fungi, and plants occurring in Brazil contributes to the prevailing taxonomic impediment and delays progress towards the GSPC targets. Over the past 12 years, a legion of taxonomists motivated to meet Target 1 of the GSPC, worked together to gather and integrate knowledge on the algal, plant, and fungal diversity of Brazil. Overall, a team of about 980 taxonomists joined efforts in a highly collaborative project that used cybertaxonomy to prepare an updated Flora of Brazil, showing the power of scientific collaboration to reach ambitious goals. This paper presents an overview of the Brazilian Flora 2020 and provides taxonomic and spatial updates on the algae, fungi, and plants found in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. We further identify collection gaps and summarize future goals that extend beyond 2020. Our results show that Brazil is home to 46,975 native species of algae, fungi, and plants, of which 19,669 are endemic to the country. The data compiled to date suggests that the Atlantic Rainforest might be the most diverse Brazilian domain for all plant groups except gymnosperms, which are most diverse in the Amazon. However, scientific knowledge of Brazilian diversity is still unequally distributed, with the Atlantic Rainforest and the Cerrado being the most intensively sampled and studied biomes in the country. In times of “scientific reductionism”, with botanical and mycological sciences suffering pervasive depreciation in recent decades, the first online Flora of Brazil 2020 significantly enhanced the quality and quantity of taxonomic data available for algae, fungi, and plants from Brazil. This project also made all the information freely available online, providing a firm foundation for future research and for the management, conservation, and sustainable use of the Brazilian funga and flora