ESG-risk Factors and Value Multiplier of Telecommunications Companies

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the study of the impact of environmental, social responsibility and corporate governance (ESG) risk factors on the value of telecommunications industry enterprises expressed through the EV_EBITDA multiplier. The main goal was to assess the elimination of ESG risks from the standpoint of increasing the competitiveness of the company. The methodological basis of the study was the coordination of non-financial information of companies with their financial results. The paper implements the construction of a regression model within the framework of econometric modeling, the direction of which was proposed by A. Damodaran. The authors did not limit themselves to corporate information from one country, but identified five regions, such as the USA, the European Union, the UK, the rest of the developed countries (DEV), as well as the markets of developing countries (EM). The database was compiled on the basis of non-financial business activity parameters of 57 of the world's largest telecommunications companies as of 2021, where financial information is taken from the Bloomberg database, and the ESG risk coefficient of the rating of these companies is used from the Sustainalytics research center. The result of the study was that there is a stable relationship between the risk of the ESG rating and the EV/EBITDA parameter characterizing the cost of capital – that is, the lower the risk, the greater the cost of capital. For different country groups, the result was obtained with varying degrees of confidence: for "other developed countries" with a high 5% significance level, for European countries with a 10% level, for the USA, the insignificance of the coefficient is associated with a small sample size, and for developing country markets the coefficient is insignificant. The novelty of the results obtained lies in the use of a metric approach to confirm the stable dependence of ESG risk factors on the EV/EBITDA cost multiplier. The results obtained allow us to make a generalized conclusion that the elimination of ESG risks contributes to the growth of the company's competitiveness, where the results of the study are able to encourage companies to consider the disclosure of non-financial information as an important indicator of long-term sustainability. When ESG is considered as an integral factor in the future activity of the company, the end result is its higher evaluation by stakeholders.