To Recognize Indication of Financial Distress and Or Bankruptcy of Five Textile Company for Five Years
Period Using Five Financial Distress Models
26 Return: Study of Management, Economic and Bussines , Vol 2 (No 1), Jan 2023
(Hayes 2021) defines financial distress as a condition in which a company or individual
cannot generate sufficient revenues or income, making it unable to meet or pay its financial
obligations. This is generally due to high fixed costs, a large degree of illiquid assets, or
revenues sensitive to economic downturns. For individuals, financial distress can arise from
poor budgeting, overspending, too high of a debt load, lawsuit, or loss of employment.
By recognizing the signs of financial distress based on up-to-date data, companies can take
the necessary set of actions before they become acute and can no longer be handled with simple
steps. By recognizing these signs, companies can take proper actions to avoid devastation or
the occurrence of bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy is a legal proceeding initiated when a person or business is unable to repay
outstanding debts or obligations. The bankruptcy process begins with a petition filed by the
debtor, which is most common, or on behalf of creditors, which is less common. All of the
debtor's assets are measured and evaluated, and the assets may be used to repay a portion of
the outstanding debt (Hayes 2021).
There are some indication or warning signs to express if a company in a financial distress.
Usually, it can be seen from financial statement that show financial performance, i.e., profit
and loss statement. When a company is in this situation, there are some causes and need some
strategic action to overcome it. But clearly the bankers or other creditors will see this as a sign
not to lend the company. From financial statement, bankers and creditors can see the prospect
of business, the future of the company. When talking about financial, it means not just
statement of profit and loss, but also balance sheet, and even cash flow statement.
Profitability, liquidity, and operating capacity negatively affect financial distress, while
leverage and sales growth does not affect financial distress (Sutra and Mais 2019).
Bad financial performance may come from bad management, both in bad creating sales or
income and bad in controlling efficiency. This situation will cause low profit or even high loss.
If the situation goes for a long period, it could make the company in very serious bad situation,
that come into a hole of bankruptcy. Bad sales or income may come from bad quality of
products and or service, or high price, as a part of rapid competition. Usually this makes
consumers decide to buy from the competitors. Financial distress also can be seen when a
company cannot pay their debts or other obligations when it is in due date.
Financial distress can be seen in various ways, such as declining financial performance, the
company's inability to pay its obligations, the termination of dividend payments, cash flow
problems faced by the company, liquidity difficulties, layoffs of workers, and other conditions
that indicate financial distress. faced by the company. Based on the research background, the
dependent variables studied are profitability, liquidity, leverage, operating leverage and sales
growth (Sutra and Mais 2019).
Firms with low profitability, low liquidity, large size, low growth in operating profit and
high solvency will face a higher level of financial distress. Thus, this can be served as indicators
for managers to monitor their financial position in their corporations. Corporate managers must
realize the importance of early detections to avoid facing distressed and total lost in corporate
values of their firms (Thim, Choong, and Nee 2011).
When a company for a period of time having grey zone, and the management were not
able to cope up with those issues, then the company will be in distress zone (Soni 2019). The
sickness indications of the sample garment factories are not the same over the period under
review (Munawar, Firli, and Iradianty 2018). The identified causes of sickness are inefficiency
in working capital management, inefficient operations of current assets, underutilization of
available resources, the presence of idle capacity, below satisfactory of activity level in terms
of productions etc. The remedial measures suggest to providing sufficient working capital,
utilize resources properly, reduce idle capacity, ensure acceptable return on equity, reinvest