Portugal is part of the group of European countries with the highest proportion of companies that create value sustainably for shareholders, alongside Denmark and Turkey, according to a study by consulting firm Bain & Company. The report, titled "Sustained Value Creation: The Test of the Best," identifies so-called SVCs (sustained value creators) as companies that combine returns above the cost of capital with real revenue growth consistently. Conversely, Spain has no companies in this category in 2025, despite having had SVCs over the past decade.
In Europe, only 25% of the companies analyzed met the two criteria in 2025, but only 0.5% managed to do so over 10 consecutive years. Only 34 European companies are in the SVC category in 2025, the majority of which were not on the 2015 list. The study shows that it is more difficult to sustain this performance in Europe than in other regions, with only 8% of European companies analyzed as SVCs, compared to 14% in the Americas.
Bain associates this growing difficulty with a structural decline in profitability among the world's largest companies, whose average annual return fell from 18% between 1990 and 2000 to 9% between 2015 and 2025. In this context, European SVCs delivered on average twice the return of the other large companies analyzed, with an average total shareholder return of 13% over 10 years. The 47 global "all-stars," companies that maintained SVC status in all years of the past two decades, recorded a return six times higher than the rest.
Francisco Montenegro, partner at Bain & Company, stated that Portugal appearing among the markets with the highest concentration of SVCs is not an accident, but rather a reflection of companies that made clear strategic choices and maintained them over time. The consulting firm attributes the performance of SVCs to factors such as careful market and portfolio management, investment in differentiating assets and capabilities, strengthening leadership positions, and replicable growth models. The study also points out that smaller European markets tend to concentrate a higher proportion of SVCs, a trend that places Portugal among the most relevant examples in Europe.
