Corporate Finance, 5th Edition
by Pierre Vernimmen, Pascal Quiry, Maurizio Dallocchio, Yann Le Fur, Antonio Salvi
Chapter 47 Bankruptcy and restructuring
Women and children first!
Every economic system needs mechanisms to ensure the optimal use of resources. Bankruptcy is the primary instrument for reallocating means of production from inefficient to efficient firms.
A bankruptcy process can allow a company to reorganise, often requiring asset sales, a change in ownership and partial debt forgiveness on the part of creditors. In other cases, bankruptcy leads to liquidation – the death of the company.
Generally speaking, bankruptcy is triggered when a company can no longer meet its short-term commitments and thus faces a liquidity crisis. Nevertheless, the exact definition of the financial distress leading the company to file for bankruptcy may differ from one jurisdiction to another.
Bankruptcy is a critical juncture in the life of the firm. Not only does the bankruptcy require that each of the company’s stakeholders make specific choices, but the very possibility of bankruptcy has an impact on the investment and financing strategies of healthy companies.