Évaluation de la performance et maîtrise du risque des entreprises industrielles françaises

What is it about?

When a lender receives a loan application from a company, the assessment of the company’s assets is a crucial element in his decision to grant the financing. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that difficulties in assessment, which can restrict access to capital, stem from the growing array of products, markets and, accordingly, the required assets. The methods generally applied are inadequate to apprehend the diversity of economic and financial situations. Our empirical research is based on a classification in ascending order of a sample of small and mediumsized French companies for which both quantitative and qualitative information was available. We show that there are several ways fora company to achieve profitability, but that in principle there are no criteria for establishing a hierarchical classification of the different methods. Companies are classified according to whether the markets for their products are generic or dedicated, and according to their organization, with either specific or standard assets. However, there is little difference between the capital structure and the profitability of companies in different classes. The uniform nature of companies’shareholders’ equity reflects lenders’ difficulty in assessing the creditworthiness of companies, that is, their ability to implement an «action system» defined as a coherent, and therefore profitable, choice of products and organization. The article concludes that assessments of corporate performances must take into account the diversity of action systems and emphasize both the internal coherence of a company and the way it relates to its environment. This approach leads to more precise forecasts, thereby improving the management of credit risks.

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