Key Benchmarks for Financial Recovery of Commodity Producers in the Regional System of Anti-Crisis Management: Agricultural Organizations of the Kemerovo Region

This publication addresses the challenges of financial recovery for commodity producers at the stages of identifying and preventing pre-crisis situations. The research objective was to identify and describe the key benchmarks for financial recovery for commodity producers within the regional crisis management system. The study included individual intra-corporate processes and their patterns while taking into account the external influences. A previously developed selective-indicative model for express diagnostics of bankruptcy risks provided statistical data. The regional and industry-specific model covered large and medium-sized agricultural organizations in the Kemerovo Region, Russia. The research started with sampling, interpretation, and classification (direct indicators) of bankruptcy risks, which were then correlated with typical bankruptcy criteria. After structuring the bankruptcy risks into commercial risks and unbalanced liquidity risks, the authors recorded the metrics of structural risk components. Next stage involved a synthesis of direct bankruptcy risk indicators into a diagnostic structure to develop a gradation scale for the model. The operational bankruptcy risk instruments were structured as a pyramid that included bankruptcy criteria, structural components of bankruptcy risks, analytical vectors of anti-crisis diagnostics, direct bankruptcy indicators, bankruptcy signal analytical base (factors of preferred growth and decline), and quantitative bankruptcy factors. The model was tested on data obtained from 38 local enterprises. They were differentiated by bankruptcy risk level (≥ 50 vs. ≤50 %). After that, each enterprise was provided with crisis fields and key benchmarks for financial recovery, as well as fundamental areas of economic impact to strengthen the financial status of regional economic entities. The key benchmarks for the financial recovery of commodity producers (crisis management levers) were identified using a system of operational tools and general bankruptcy risk metrics based on the crisis areas identified in the producers’ activities. Pre-trial recovery should become a standard strategy aimed at restoring the regulatory solvency levels. Factors for the growth of equity capital and the sources (elements) of its formation were identified as fundamental benchmarks for the financial sustainability of regional agricultural enterprises. Insufficient equity capital is a serious and wide-spread financial problem. It explains the current government restrictive monetary policy, which stimulates the expansion of producers’ equity capital.