Shareholder return and value creation at listed infrastructure companies in different economic contexts

The creation of value in listed companies has been of interest to the research field and to practitioners in the investment arena for more than eighty years. It can be considered to have two aspects the first with more quantitative elements related to financial and performance aspects, and the second with more qualitative elements related to company competitiveness. The stated goal is the evaluation of the factors that influence value creation in different economic contexts and their possible changes of listed infrastructure companies with data referring to before, during and after the crisis of 2008. The fuzzy-set QCA method has been used, where the relationship between both factors, qualitative and comparative, can be reflected on an output related to value creation, represented by the Total Shareholder Return (TSR). The TSR is an appropriate indicator as it provides a broader measure, which includes the share price, and represents the overall return that the investor can achieve, that is, the amount returned to shareholders. The conclusions reached highlight the importance of qualitative and quantitative factors, as well as their combination, in creating value and that there are differences that exist before, during and after the crisis.