Purpose

From 2006 to 2016, Brazilian agricultural cooperatives exhibited a sharp increase in sales. Since the operational cycle of these organizations demands a positive net working capital that is usually funded by debt, the authors examine whether this rise in sales was obtained at the cost of the short-term financial sustainability. As a matter of comparison, the authors conduct the same analysis for Brazilian agricultural public traded companies.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors employ the dynamic analysis of working capital method to measure the short-term financial sustainability of these organizations.

Findings

The authors find that the expansion of net working capital caused by the growth of the revenues of the sampled cooperatives was mostly funded by short-term debt, which rose by 31% in annualized terms. The authors also document that around 60% of these firms displayed a current capital structure that can be considered risky in terms of indebtedness, and that the majority of firms exhibited a non-sustainable growth in the period, what contrasts with the performance presented by Brazilian agricultural publicly traded companies, since only 16% of the firms from this group have shown a non-sustainable growth. This distinction seems to be explained by the lower capacity of agricultural cooperatives to provide resources from their operations.

Originality/value

The authors investigate the short-term financial sustainability of a unique dataset of 65 Brazilian agricultural cooperatives and provide insight for researchers analyzing the dual nature of these firms.

中文翻译：

---

农业合作社的短期财务可持续性

目的

从2006年到2016年，巴西农业合作社的销售额出现了大幅增长。由于这些组织的运营周期需要通常由债务提供资金的正净营运资本，作者研究了这种销售额的增长是否是以短期财务可持续性为代价获得的。作为比较，作者对巴西农业上市公司进行了相同的分析。

设计/方法/方法

作者采用营运资本动态分析法来衡量这些组织的短期财务可持续性。

发现

作者发现，抽样合作社收入增长导致的净营运资金扩张主要来自短期债务，按年化计算增长了31%。作者还指出，这些公司中约有 60% 显示出当前的资本结构，在债务方面可被视为有风险，并且大多数公司在此期间表现出不可持续的增长，这与巴西的表现形成鲜明对比。农业上市公司，因为该组中只有 16% 的公司表现出不可持续的增长。这种区别似乎是因为农业合作社从其经营活动中提供资源的能力较低。

原创性/价值

作者调查了由 65 个巴西农业合作社组成的独特数据集的短期财务可持续性，并为分析这些公司双重性质的研究人员提供了见解。