IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jocaae/v10y2014i3p277-295.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Finance company failure in New Zealand during 2006–2009: Predictable failures?

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas, Ella
  • Lont, David
  • Scott, Tom

Abstract

Over 31 finance companies (non-bank deposit takers) failed in New Zealand over the 2006–2009 period. With an estimated loss of over NZ$3 billion, there was public outcry and a parliamentary inquiry into the causes of the failures, but few have asked if this was a predictable event. We find that failed finance companies have lower capital adequacy, inferior asset quality, more loans falling due, higher earnings and lower cash flows. Furthermore, failed companies have a longer audit lag and some trustees appear to have a greater percentage of failed firms than others. Our logistic model can successfully classify failure one year before for 88.7% of companies. Our logistic model (neural network) can also correctly classify up to 87.5% (83.3%) of a holdout sample. Our results are of interest to regulators and practitioners, as we show that publicly available data could distinguish between failed and non-failed finance companies.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas, Ella & Lont, David & Scott, Tom, 2014. "Finance company failure in New Zealand during 2006–2009: Predictable failures?," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 277-295.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jocaae:v:10:y:2014:i:3:p:277-295
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2014.10.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1815566914000277
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcae.2014.10.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Altman, Edward I., 1977. "Predicting performance in the savings and loan association industry," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 443-466, October.
    2. Platt, Harlan D. & Platt, Marjorie B., 1991. "A note on the use of industry-relative ratios in bankruptcy prediction," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1183-1194, December.
    3. George A. Akerlof & Paul M. Romer, 1993. "Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(2), pages 1-74.
    4. B Korcan Ak & Patricia M Dechow & Yuan Sun & Annika Yu Wang, 2013. "The use of financial ratio models to help investors predict and interpret significant corporate events," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 38(3), pages 553-598, December.
    5. Tam, KY, 1991. "Neural network models and the prediction of bank bankruptcy," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 429-445.
    6. Ali Ataullah & Andrew Higson & Mark Tippett, 2007. "The Distributional Properties of the Debt to Equity Ratio: Some Implications for Empirical Research," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 43(2), pages 111-135, June.
    7. Balcaen, Sofie & Ooghe, Hubert, 2006. "35 years of studies on business failure: an overview of the classic statistical methodologies and their related problems," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 63-93.
    8. Ravi Kumar, P. & Ravi, V., 2007. "Bankruptcy prediction in banks and firms via statistical and intelligent techniques - A review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 180(1), pages 1-28, July.
    9. Rüdiger Bachmann & Lin Ma, 2016. "Lumpy Investment, Lumpy Inventories," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(5), pages 821-855, August.
    10. West, Robert Craig, 1985. "A factor-analytic approach to bank condition," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 253-266, June.
    11. Espahbodi, Pouran, 1991. "Identification of problem banks and binary choice models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 53-71, February.
    12. Wu, Y. & Gaunt, C. & Gray, S., 2010. "A comparison of alternative bankruptcy prediction models," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 34-45.
    13. DeAngelo, Linda Elizabeth, 1981. "Auditor size and audit quality," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 183-199, December.
    14. Grice, John Stephen & Ingram, Robert W., 2001. "Tests of the generalizability of Altman's bankruptcy prediction model," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 53-61, October.
    15. Mark L. DeFond & K. Raghunandan & K.R. Subramanyam, 2002. "Do Non–Audit Service Fees Impair Auditor Independence? Evidence from Going Concern Audit Opinions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 1247-1274, September.
    16. Beaver, Wh, 1966. "Financial Ratios As Predictors Of Failure," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4, pages 71-111.
    17. Francis, Jere R., 2004. "What do we know about audit quality?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 345-368.
    18. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    19. Geof Mortlock & Ian Woolford, 2003. "Financial sector assessment programme," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, vol. 66, March.
    20. Felicity Barker & Noemi Javier, 2010. "Regulating non-bank deposit takers," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, vol. 73, pages 5-18, December.
    21. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    22. Lennox, Clive, 2000. "Do companies successfully engage in opinion-shopping? Evidence from the UK," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 321-337, June.
    23. Martin, Daniel, 1977. "Early warning of bank failure : A logit regression approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 249-276, November.
    24. Meyer, Paul A & Pifer, Howard W, 1970. "Prediction of Bank Failures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(4), pages 853-868, September.
    25. David Ashton & Paul Dunmore & Mark Tippett, 2004. "Double Entry Bookkeeping and the Distributional Properties of a Firm's Financial Ratios," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5‐6), pages 583-606, June.
    26. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy: A Discriminant Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 193-194, March.
    27. Ohlson, Ja, 1980. "Financial Ratios And The Probabilistic Prediction Of Bankruptcy," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 109-131.
    28. Kao, Chiang & Liu, Shiang-Tai, 2004. "Predicting bank performance with financial forecasts: A case of Taiwan commercial banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(10), pages 2353-2368, October.
    29. ., 2012. "Trade–Investment Nexus and Intra-Industry Trade," Chapters, in: Trade and Industrial Development in East Asia, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    30. Canbas, Serpil & Cabuk, Altan & Kilic, Suleyman Bilgin, 2005. "Prediction of commercial bank failure via multivariate statistical analysis of financial structures: The Turkish case," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 166(2), pages 528-546, October.
    31. M. Humayun Kabir & Fawzi Laswad, 2014. "The Behaviour of Earnings, Accruals and Impairment Losses of Failed New Zealand Finance Companies," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 24(3), pages 262-275, September.
    32. Marion Davis & David Hay, 2012. "An Analysis of Submissions on Proposed Regulations for Audit and Assurance in New Zealand," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 22(3), pages 303-316, September.
    33. Beaver, Wh, 1966. "Financial Ratios As Predictors Of Failure - Reply," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4, pages 123-127.
    34. David Ashton & Paul Dunmore & Mark Tippett, 2004. "Double Entry Bookkeeping and the Distributional Properties of a Firm's Financial Ratios," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5-6), pages 583-606.
    35. Hadhek Zouhaier & Kefi Mohamed Karim, 2012. "Democracy, Investment and Economic Growth," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 2(3), pages 233-240.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tiago Mendes-Neves & Diogo Seca & Ricardo Sousa & Cláudia Ribeiro & João Mendes-Moreira, 2024. "Estimating the Likelihood of Financial Behaviours Using Nearest Neighbors," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 63(4), pages 1477-1491, April.
    2. Yanni Huang & Sumei Luo & Guohu Xu & Guanyou Zhou, 2018. "Quantitative Analysis and Evaluation of Enterprise Group Financial Company Efficiency in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-17, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mohammad Mahdi Mousavi & Jamal Ouenniche & Kaoru Tone, 2023. "A dynamic performance evaluation of distress prediction models," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 756-784, July.
    2. fernández, María t. Tascón & gutiérrez, Francisco J. Castaño, 2012. "Variables y Modelos Para La Identificación y Predicción Del Fracaso Empresarial: Revisión de La Investigación Empírica Reciente," Revista de Contabilidad - Spanish Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 7-58.
    3. Zhiyong Li & Chen Feng & Ying Tang, 2022. "Bank efficiency and failure prediction: a nonparametric and dynamic model based on data envelopment analysis," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 315(1), pages 279-315, August.
    4. Li Xian Liu & Shuangzhe Liu & Milind Sathye, 2021. "Predicting Bank Failures: A Synthesis of Literature and Directions for Future Research," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-24, October.
    5. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2009_035 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Demyanyk, Yuliya & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2009. "Financial crises and bank failures: a review of prediction methods," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 35/2009, Bank of Finland.
    7. Koen W. de Bock, 2017. "The best of two worlds: Balancing model strength and comprehensibility in business failure prediction using spline-rule ensembles," Post-Print hal-01588059, HAL.
    8. Demyanyk, Yuliya & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2010. "Financial crises and bank failures: A review of prediction methods," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 315-324, October.
    9. Citterio, Alberto, 2024. "Bank failure prediction models: Review and outlook," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    10. Zeineb Affes & Rania Hentati-Kaffel, 2019. "Predicting US Banks Bankruptcy: Logit Versus Canonical Discriminant Analysis," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 199-244, June.
    11. Demyanyk, Yuliya & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2010. "Financial crises and bank failures: A review of prediction methods," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 315-324, October.
    12. Mohammad Mahdi Mousavi & Jamal Ouenniche, 2018. "Multi-criteria ranking of corporate distress prediction models: empirical evaluation and methodological contributions," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 271(2), pages 853-886, December.
    13. Leila Bateni & Farshid Asghari, 2020. "Bankruptcy Prediction Using Logit and Genetic Algorithm Models: A Comparative Analysis," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 55(1), pages 335-348, January.
    14. Zhou, Fanyin & Fu, Lijun & Li, Zhiyong & Xu, Jiawei, 2022. "The recurrence of financial distress: A survival analysis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1100-1115.
    15. Le, Hong Hanh & Viviani, Jean-Laurent, 2018. "Predicting bank failure: An improvement by implementing a machine-learning approach to classical financial ratios," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 16-25.
    16. Serrano-Cinca, Carlos & Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Bernate-Valbuena, Martha, 2019. "The use of accounting anomalies indicators to predict business failure," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 353-375.
    17. Carlos Serrano-Cinca & Yolanda Fuertes-Call鮠 & Bego uti鲲ez-Nieto & Beatriz Cuellar-Fernᮤez, 2014. "Path modelling to bankruptcy: causes and symptoms of the banking crisis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(31), pages 3798-3811, November.
    18. Kolari, James & Glennon, Dennis & Shin, Hwan & Caputo, Michele, 2002. "Predicting large US commercial bank failures," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 361-387.
    19. Zeineb Affes & Rania Hentati-Kaffel, 2016. "Predicting US banks bankruptcy: logit versus Canonical Discriminant analysis," Post-Print halshs-01281948, HAL.
    20. Zeineb Affes & Rania Hentati-Kaffel, 2016. "Predicting US banks bankruptcy: logit versus Canonical Discriminant analysis," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 16016, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    21. Psillaki, Maria & Tsolas, Ioannis E. & Margaritis, Dimitris, 2010. "Evaluation of credit risk based on firm performance," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 201(3), pages 873-881, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jocaae:v:10:y:2014:i:3:p:277-295. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-contemporary-accounting-and-economics .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.