CORPORATE ATTRIBUTES AND SHARE VALUE OF LISTED PHARMACEUTICAL FIRMS IN NIGERIA

The issue of what determines share price of firms generated a lot of arguments among scholars all over the world. Various studies were conducted in an attempt to investigate whether corporate attributes such as firm size, leverage, profitability, liquidity, firm growth among others influence share price of an organization but the findings yielded mixed results. It is on this background that this study examines the impact of corporate attributes on the share price of listed pharmaceutical firms in Nigeria using a panel data of five sampled firms for a period of ten years (2004-2013). The data is extracted from the annual accounts of the selected firms. Multiple regression technique is employed to examine the influence of corporate attributes on the share price of listed pharmaceutical firms in Nigeria. The study reveals that firm size, leverage, profitability and growth have positive and significant relationship with share price implying that they have impact in increasing share price. However, the relationship between liquidity and share price is found to be negative, indicating that liquidity has no influence in enhancing share price of listed pharmaceutical firms in Nigeria. The study therefore, recommended that firm size, leverage, profitability and firm growth should be enhanced in view of their influence in increasing the share price while liquidity should not be given any attention in an effort of rising share price.