Financial distress prediction in private firms: developing a model for troubled debt restructuring

Purpose - This study aims to develop a model based on the financial variables for better accuracy of financial distress prediction on the sample of private French, Spanish and Italian firms. Thus, firms in financial difficulties could timely request for troubled debt restructuring (TDR) to continue business. Design/methodology/approach - This study used a sample of 312 distressed and 312 non-distressed firms. It includes 60 French, 21 Spanish and 231 Italian firms in both distressed and non-distressed groups. The data are extracted from the ORBIS database. First, the authors develop a new model by replacing a ratio in the original Z”-Score model specifically for financial distress prediction and estimate its coefficients based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Second, using the modified Z”-Score model, the authors develop a firm TDR probability index for distressed and non-distressed firms based on the logistic regression model. Findings - The new model (modified Z”-Score), specifically for financial distress prediction, represents higher prediction accuracy. Moreover, the firm TDR probability index accurately depicts the probabilities trend for both groups of distressed and non-distressed firms. Research limitations/implications - The findings of this study are conclusive. However, the sample size is small. Therefore, further studies could extend the application of the prediction model developed in this study to all the EU countries. Practical implications - This study has important practical implications. This study responds to the EU directive call by developing the financial distress prediction model to allow debtors to do timely debt restructuring and thus continue their businesses. Therefore, this study could be useful for practitioners and firm stakeholders, such as banks and other creditors, and investors. Originality/value - This study significantly contributes to the literature in several ways. First, this study develops a model for predicting financial distress based on the argument that corporate bankruptcy and financial distress are distinct events. However, the original Z”-Score model is intended for failure prediction. Moreover, the recent literature suggests modifying and extending the prediction models. Second, the new model is tested using a sample of firms from three countries that share similarities in their TDR laws.