Stage Firm Life Cycle for Cash Flow Patterns and Enterprise Insolvency’s Risk

Abstract

Motivated by the importance of the risk of bankruptcy in capital structure decisions, this study aims to establish the insolvency risk firm in accordance to the life cycle stages and determine how the stages can explain the change insolvency´s risk. The population under study is companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Buenos Aires, in the period 2004 to 2012. The evidence shows linking life cycle stages with the insolvency´s risk. The firms in the stage maturity have lower risk, relative to the other stages. Moreover, the life cycle stages have a predictive capacity on changing the insolvency´s risk in the next year, the maturity stage has a positive effect and the decline stage a negative effect. The firms that are maintained in the mature stage have a greater opportunity to stay in this stage and firms in growth stages and shake-out have a greater possibility to enter the introduction and decline stages that in the maturity stage.