EFFECT OF FIRM ATTRIBUTES ON THE GROWTH OF HEALTHCARE COMPANIES LISTED ON THE NIGERIAN EXCHANGE GROUP

Abstract

The Nigerian healthcare industry is poorly performing compare to global standards and remains heavily dependent on imports especially Consumer Drugs and Vaccines. It is estimated that total pharma market has come down from $ 717 million ?293.97B in 2016 to $ 607 million ?248.87B in 2017 with negative growth of 15.6%. In light of this, the study examined the effect of firm attributes on the growth of listed healthcare companies in Nigeria from the period of 2013-2022. The population of the study consisted of eleven 11 healthcare companies listed in Nigeria, three 3 healthcare companies were later filtered out reducing the total population to eight 8 adjusted population. Secondary data were extracted from the annual financial reports of the eight 8 adjusted population from 2013 to 2022. The dependent variable which is firm growth was proxied by changes in sales of the companies, while firm attributes was proxied by leverage, profitability, liquidity and firm size. After all the necessary diagnostic tests were conducted the outcome supported the use of the Random Effect regression analysis technique. The regression result shows that profitability and liquidity have positive and significant effect on the growth of healthcare companies in Nigeria. Therefore, the study concluded that profitability and liquidity are the major determinants of healthcare companies’ growth in Nigeria. In line with the conclusion, the study recommended that the management of the listed healthcare companies in Nigeria should increase their profitability to enhance their growth. Also, the management of the listed healthcare companies in Nigeria should maintain a reasonable ratio of liquidity to ensure their growth.