LINK BETWEEN CORPORATE STRATEGY AND BANKRUPTCY RISK: A STUDY OF SELECT LARGE INDIAN FIRMS

Firms face bankruptcy risk when they are unable to meet the principal and interest obligations towards the bondholders. The bankruptcy costs arising out of this risk put pressure on the firm value and also affect the stockholders. To predict the corporate bankruptcy, Altman Z Score, which is based on firms' liquidity, profitability, earnings ability, market value and asset turnover is considered appropriate. The current study is an evaluation of relationship between corporate strategy adopted and bankruptcy risk experienced by the firms, categorized as concentrated and diversified firms. Since corporate strategy applied alters asset composition, which in turn influence their financial leverage thus allowing management understand the choice of strategy and its influence on bankruptcy risk. Hence, Altman Z score methodology is applied on select large manufacturing firms that earned more than 100 million in revenue during the financial years 2009-10 through 2015-16 categorized as concentrated and diversified firms based on Herfindahl index. Results show that concentrated firms face slightly lower bankruptcy risk than diversified firms. This may be because concentrated firms fare better than diversified firms on performance, sales and profitability.