How long can large companies wait to invest?

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 06. 10. 11:56

The investment willingness of large companies has been stagnant for six months – according to the data from the first quarter of 2025 research of the K&H Large Company Growth Index. The sub-index shows the lowest investment willingness ever, with less than a third of company managers planning to develop in the next 12 months. The majority agree on how the volume of investments will change. 9 out of ten company managements have settled for stagnation and only the remaining one is optimistic, where they believe that the volume of investments may be on an increasing path.

In the history of the survey, that is, in the past 11 years, it has not been typical for Hungarian large companies to have restrained their development investments to such an extent as they are now. The K&H Large Enterprise Growth Index, which provides an overview of the economic expectations of the largest domestic companies, has shown that the investment willingness indicator for the first quarter of 2025 remained unchanged compared to the previous three months: only less than a third (29%) of large companies still plan to make such expenditures over the next year.

“Such a lack of willingness to invest may give rise to some concern regarding the launch of economic growth, as these are the largest companies in the country, and their purchasing power contributes greatly to boosting consumption. Hopefully, the willingness of company managers may increase in the near future, especially if their export prospects can stabilize. At the same time, there will certainly be many who prefer to wait and focus on building up safety reserves instead of developments. However, a complicating factor for them is that they are forced to make efficiency changes, they have to optimize their operations in the hope of higher sales and profits, and only after that will they be able to meaningfully invest in them,”

Tibor Bodor, head of K&H’s Corporate Division, said in connection with the results. There has also been some rearrangement in the volume of investments: most company managers have settled for stagnation, nine out of ten respondents think so. However, it is somewhat positive that the proportion of those who expect a decreasing development volume is at a record low, only 2 percent of them believe this, the last time there were similarly low values in the fall of 2021. In contrast, every tenth company expects increasing development expenses. Looking at companies by sector, the wait-and-see attitude is most typical of industrial companies, while service providers are the most optimistic – nearly every fifth manager expects more investments in the next year.

The two most popular development directions continue to be technological developments and capacity expansion – the former was mentioned by every fifth manager expecting development, while the latter is planned by every tenth.