Is it worth restructuring? Analysis of companies in poor financial condition in Poland

Abstract

Deteriorating financial condition of a company may lead to insolvency. As a result, the company may be declared bankrupt or undergo restructuring. The first goal of the study described in the paper is to compare the financial condition of Poland-based non-financial companies undergoing restructuring and bankruptcy processes. In the empirical study, a tool for forecasting the future financial situation of a company was constructed. The second goal is the assessment of the effectiveness of restructuring processes on the basis of a comparative analysis of companies subjected to varios forms of this procedure. An attempt was made to identify the determinants of the success or failure of the restructuring process. The study was based on the information from the Coface Poland, EMIS Professional and the Court and Commercial Gazette (Pol. ‘Polski Monitor Sądowy i Gospodarczy’) databases. The empirical research was conducted on a random sample of financial data of 1740 non-financial companies (580 companies that were declared bankrupt, 580 companies undergoing a restructuring, and 580 companies in a good financial condition) in 2015–2019. The Kruskal-Wallis test, Dunn’s test, Mann-Whitney’s test and the random forest classifier were used for the purpose of the study. Companies that were declared bankrupt or underwent a restructuring process have more in common with each other than with companies efficiently operating in the market. It was possible to create a classifier which enabled forecasting whether a company will have financial problems. The results of the study demonstrated that the efficiency of the restructuring process does not depend on financial factors. Moreover, restructuring often fails to protect companies from bankruptcy and does not have a significant impact on the financial condition of restructured entities.