A Study on the Plausibility of Financial Distress Due to Covid 19: Evidence from Nifty Fifty Companies
摘要
Covid 19 pandemic and the multiple nationwide lockdowns have affected almost all the sectors, with travel and tourism being worst hit. A study by Guerrieri et al. (Macroeconomic Implications of COVID-19: Can Negative Supply Shocks Cause Demand Shortages?’, NBER Working Paper, No. 26918, 2020), indicated that pandemic shook the business sector which caused many businesses to shut down, lay off employees and face bankruptcy. Companies with high leverage were more at risk of bankruptcy as they had to manage debts and borrowing costs. As the Industry is now trying to revive back to its pre covid days, the present study tries to gauge the resilience of the top Indian Nifty 50 companies. Financial stress is the major problem for companies in developing countries like India. The economic cost of a corporate failure is not confined to the company alone, but has a major spillover effect on the various stakeholders. Given such a scenario and for an economy which is reviving from an epidemiological crisis, it is but imperative to study on the early warning financial stress in corporate sector. The study results are important to the corporates to formulate strategies in predicting their financial health as well as taking remedial action to protect both theirs and the stakeholder interest. Existing bankruptcy prediction model Altman Z score model is applied to gauge the early warning financial stress if at all was faced by the top companies in India. The results of the study indicates that except for Power Generation, Iron & Steel and to some extent Infrastructure and Telecom sectors, other sectors exhibited resilience amidst Covid 19 uncertainties.