Competitors’ cost analysis: a study with companies of the Brazilian sugarcane industry

Abstract The paper’s goal is to analyze the main predictors of the cost of goods sold based on the Competitors’ Cost Analysis Technique and to verify the influence of capital structure and the capital asset on the cost of the goods sold. We collected data from Economatica and Fundamentus databases. We extracted the data from quarterly Balance Sheets and Income Statements by Brazilians companies, such as Biosev S.A., Cosan S.A. and São Martinho S.A. We used the Cost of Goods Sold (CGS) as the dependent variable in two regression models and for the explanatory variables, we used revenue, capital assets and capital structure measured by the total liability divided by total asset plus the debt-to-equity ratio. We conclude that the variable costs have the greatest influence on the cost structure of Biosev S.A. (68% of CGS) and of Cosan S.A. (79% of CGS). Capital structure and capital assets had an impact on the CGS. The capital assets and the total debt ratio plus the equity ratio presented a direct main effect and the debt-to-equity ratio presented a proportionally inverse effect.