Thanks to the first results of a research project by Acquire Lab, a research laboratory co-directed by Leonardo Etro and Matteo Vizzaccaro, the quality of human capital fully enters the set of indicators used to determine a company’s value.
In a study carried out in collaboration with J. Hirsch and Deloitte, Rachele Anconetani, Jessica Baro, Federico Colantoni and Raffaele Turazzo use corporate investment in training as a first indicator of the quality of human capital and observe that companies allocating at least 1% of revenues to training show an implicit Enterprise Value/Sales multiple that is 9% higher than the industry average. This ratio measures how much a company is worth relative to the revenues it generates.
The fact that investment in training is associated with a structurally higher value suggests that human capital, beyond influencing internal climate or reputation, has a direct impact on the economic quality of the business.
The evidence is particularly relevant in the Italian context, characterized by stagnant productivity, strong size gaps among firms, and growth that in recent years has depended more on employment increases than on genuine efficiency gains. In this scenario, human capital emerges as a lever capable of explaining why some companies, often far from investors’ radar, display systematically superior performance.
People and economic drivers
The most widely used valuation models, from discounted cash flow to multiples, struggle to convincingly incorporate the intangible drivers of value creation. The aim of the research is to expand the explanatory and predictive power of these models by extending the analysis to dimensions that are currently marginal. Among these, human capital occupies a central position. Although it is widely recognized in managerial literature and organizational practice, it often remains indistinct in economic and financial models.
This leads to the question guiding the empirical work: Is it possible to demonstrate, using observable and comparable data, that the quality and development of people affect economic drivers and corporate valuation?
The answer is sought through a pragmatic and incremental approach. In this first phase, human capital is measured through investments in training, but the range of variables is set to expand. The underlying hypothesis is that a significant portion of the differences in terms of growth, profitability, and prospective resilience can be systematically explained here.
The role of strategic finance
The research design combines quantitative and qualitative analyses on a large sample built using rigorous criteria. The starting point is a panel of listed companies in the Eurostoxx 600, used to estimate the relationship between market multiples and economic fundamentals such as employment growth, financial leverage, taxation, and EBIT margin. In this way, the multiple is “decomposed” into the factors that determine its value.
The estimated relationship is then applied to a broad sample of unlisted Italian companies, making it possible to reconstruct an implicit EV/Sales multiple, that is, the value each firm should express in light of its fundamentals, even in the absence of a market price.
On this basis, Hidden Gems are identified: companies that, over the period 2018–2023, display implicit multiples systematically higher than the average in their sector. The overall sample involves around 140 companies, including both direct and indirect analyses.
The researchers observe that companies investing at least 1% of revenues in training show an implicit EV/Sales that is 9% higher, signaling a greater ability to turn revenues into value. Those that direct training toward digital skills record an EBITDA margin that is 1.5 percentage points higher and revenue growth about 6% higher.
The qualitative analysis provides organizational depth to these figures. In high-performing companies, recurring practices emerge: engagement supported by structured internal communication systems, continuous investments in upskilling and internal academies, performance evaluation systems linked to explicit career paths, and, in about half of the cases, advanced forms of corporate welfare.
Human-Centric Integrators
Investment in human capital improves the internal climate and strengthens economic fundamentals. It makes the company more attractive and increases its ability to sustain growth paths, including extraordinary ones.
The research also suggests that not all growth strategies are equivalent. Top performers are companies that integrate people development and M&A operations: the so-called Human-Centric Integrators. In this group, the EBITDA margin is on average 1.6 times higher than the sector level, indicating that growth through external lines creates value only when it is accompanied by coherent investment in skills and organizational culture.
From an analytical standpoint, the work is only at the beginning. The next phase aims at building a Human Capital Value Index, a composite score capable of integrating organizational policies and processes, corporate culture, and propensity for M&A, understood as the ability to manage post-deal integration without destroying value. The objective is to bring human capital into valuation models in a systematic way, making it comparable and usable in management and capital allocation decisions.
Acquire Lab, Le nuove frontiere della creazione di valore aziendale: il ruolo del capitale umano e della finanza strategica.
