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Review of Finance Vol. 14 No. 4 2010

Out-of-Court Restructuring versus Formal Bankruptcy in a Non-Interventionist Bankruptcy Setting

Philipp Jostarndt1; Zacharias Sautner2,3

1 University of Munich and The Boston Consulting Group 1 , · 2 Finance Group, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2 , , and · 3 Duisenberg School of Finance 2 , , and

open access

Abstract

We investigate debt restructurings in Germany for a sample of 116 financially distressed companies. About half of the firms succeed in restructuring their debt in a workout while the others file for bankruptcy. Our evidence suggests that firms which have higher leverage, owe more debt to banks, and exhibit higher going concern values are more likely to conduct a workout. Bankruptcy is more likely for firms with deficient lender coordination and a high fraction of collateralized debt. An analysis of stock returns suggests that the market uses similar information to predict workouts. 84% of the bankrupt firms were ultimately liquidated.

DOI
10.1093/rof/rfp022
Volume
14
Issue
4
Pages
623-668
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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