Corporate Governance and performance of company shares of the commercial sector in an environment of economic crisis

In times of crisis, companies with solid Corporate Governance (CG) tend to experience greater credibility and therefore face softer barriers in the capital market. Thus, this study aimed to analyze the relationship between CG and the share performance, in periods with and without crisis. For this purpose, companies in the commercial sector listed on B3 were considered, with shares traded in the period 2015/2016 (with crisis) and 2017/2018 (without crisis), resulting in a sample of 20 companies, totaling 319 observations. The companies were grouped by participation or not in a differentiated CG segment (L1, L2 and NM) of B3 and analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression with panel data. The results of the descriptive statistics show that, on average, the shares of companies in the trade sector listed in B3 “With-CG” performed better than those “Without-CG”, probably the result of greater transparency of the information provided, the equitable treatment of investors and the measures for monitoring agents required by CG practices. Regarding the estimated model, there was statistical significance and a positive sign for the independent variables earnings per share (EPS) and the participation of different levels of corporate governance (1% and 5% respectively). However, the variable that captures the economic crisis was not significant, and it cannot be inferred that CG practices are capable of mitigating the negative effects of economic crises on the share performance.