Controlling Working Capital in Multinational Enterprises

This paper examines the relationship between the level of working capital in major European countries, concentrating on various sectors during 1995, 2000 and 2005. We find firms in Germany and UK experienced high level of inventories turnover with 16.46 and 15.02 respectively. This high level indicates that big companies from large countries can create a high percentage of their turnover from inventories. The figure reduces once we look on companies coming from smaller countries. Results from individual sectors show that retailers and food producers are characterised with high inventory turnover in every single country included in our study. Overall national-level differences matter when controlling local working capital items both individually and collectively.