It is not uncommon for a successful company yesterday to suddenly disappear from the market, and creditors from all sides demand that it pay off its debts to them. Delayed wages, the presence of debt on loans - the first signs of bankruptcy. But only an arbitration court can declare a bankrupt company as such.
Money account love
The procedure for declaring a company bankrupt is long and complicated. A whole system of measures has been developed, which should be followed by interested parties - creditors, founders, partners, in order to get out of the situation with the least losses for themselves. Having discovered the first signs of the debtor's bankruptcy, not everyone is in a hurry to run with claims to the arbitration court, since these can only be temporary difficulties for the partner company. However, with a protracted crisis, the likelihood of its next ruin increases significantly. Grounds for concernshould be considered:
- inability to pay urgent current payments;
- debts to employees on wages for several months;
- decrease in production, sales or services;
- loss of loyal customers, etc.
Among the main signs of bankruptcy of an individual is debt on debt obligations of more than five hundred thousand rubles, which is held for three months. For a legal entity, this amount is more than three hundred thousand rubles. Monopoly enterprises fall under the bankruptcy procedure with a debt of one million rubles. The signs of bankruptcy of an individual entrepreneur are the same as those of an individual - five hundred thousand rubles, which he is not able to pay for more than three months. Finding similar problems with your partner or debtor is a reason to think about saving your own funds. No matter how close partnerships between companies are, in business everyone looks after their own interests, and if the financial difficulties of one can sink another, the business alliance comes to an end. To apply to the arbitration court with a demand to recognize an organization that owes a fairly significant amount of money, its creditor can either alone or in cooperation with other similar victims. If the debtor is not a political or religious organization, it may be declared bankrupt.
Each individual approach
There is a separate bankruptcy scheme for each category of legal entity. The concept and features of the procedure, mainlysimilar, but differ in the amount of debt and the timing of their non-payment. So, for insurance, credit and clearing organizations, trading platforms, it is enough not to pay bills for two weeks so that its partners become suspicious and get a reason to go to court. For strategic organizations (chemical plants, defense complex enterprises, etc.), this period is six months. But the most stringent requirements for declaring them bankrupt are for developers. It can be quite difficult to officially liquidate a construction organization through an arbitration court, since its assets in the form of partially erected buildings can be quite significant, although not sufficient to fulfill all financial obligations. In this case, you will have to try hard to squeeze out the maximum necessary to protect the interests of all victims from the remaining minimum.
The rules for filing applications with the court, a package of documents and procedural measures for each individual category of companies are also prescribed depending on their status. Interested parties should be wary of debts of a partner or debtor not only to banks and business partners, but also to public utilities, as well as tax and pension authorities. The inability to make mandatory contributions on time, the violation of which can lead to serious pen alties, is perhaps the main sign to be wary that something is wrong with the company.
Homeless
Both external and internal factors can lead to bankruptcy. The first can be attributeda sharp depreciation of the dollar, a drop in sales due to the appearance of a better and cheaper product from competitors, inflation and much more. These factors are difficult to calculate and influence. In contrast to internal ones, which are entirely dependent on the company's management and the board strategy adopted by it. The lack of own funds from an organization or firm due to an incorrect investment policy can be considered a significant sign of the bankruptcy of a legal entity. Especially if this trend continues for a long period of time. However, the problems leading to collapse do not have to accumulate gradually, they can collapse suddenly. For example, with a sharp fall in the exchange rate of the ruble in the presence of foreign currency loans.
If we talk about the internal miscalculations of managers who failed to build an effective management strategy, then the most failed projects can be considered:
- untimely expansion of production with a sharp drop in sales;
- acquisition of raw materials or equipment at high interest rates;
- irrational use of production assets;
- Unjustified staffing costs and unsupported salaries and bonuses, etc
The list of signs of bankruptcy of an enterprise due to an incorrect management system of its directorate can be continued. If there are small problems, they can be exacerbated by disagreements among the founders or investors, and difficulties in developing a unified strategy to level the f altering affairs. Conflicts among workerscan affect the decline in the quality of products or services. And, as a result, the loss of consumers. The snowball effect can lead to the collapse of the company in a fairly short time and without much external problems. But their total irreversible process of ruin is developing at a faster pace.
"Help" from outside
An obvious sign of the bankruptcy of a legal or natural person can be considered a sharp decline in their solvency due to the intervention of unforeseen factors that do not depend on the company's internal business policy. Not every firm strengthens the staff with services or departments working on the miscalculation of possible changes in the stock exchanges in order to protect themselves from untimely implementation of risky operations. Therefore, without having data on forecasts of currency fluctuations, even in the absence of dollar loans, its sharp jump can lead to tangible drops in the income of manufacturing companies. Not only due to the fact that most of the contractual obligations for the purchase / sale of raw materials and equipment on the domestic market are tied to the exchange rate. Even if the calculation is in ruble terms, the intervention of concomitant factors in the form of a sharp rise in the price of fuel, which is pegged to the dollar, will inevitably lead to an increase in the cost of production due to an increase in logistics costs. And so it is in everything - one unforeseen problem catches another.
During a major financial crisis, whether fleeting or protracted, the signs of bankruptcy of many successful companies are observed more often. In addition to a jump in currencies, to unforeseenfinancial losses can result:
- reduction of subsidies from federal or regional budgets;
- inflation;
- changes in legislative acts;
- increase in competition;
- fines;
- emergency payments, etc.
In addition, the amount of obligations taken in excess of the estimated value of the property at their disposal can lead to the ruin of an individual. Having found such a sign, business partners have the right to declare the initiation of bankruptcy proceedings against the company. The further procedure for its implementation will depend on the specifics of the industry in which the company or organization operates.
The trust that burst
Often, even with all the obvious signs of bankruptcy, companies are in no hurry to follow the requirements of the law and notify investors and creditors of their difficult financial situation. By taking risky steps, often involving high-interest loans, to save the situation, the problems only become more serious. In order to avoid such situations, in the second half of the last century, the American scientist-economist Edward Altman developed several evaluation methods for predicting the probability of bankruptcy based on the analysis of company performance. Two-factor with a miscalculation of avoiding ruin without attracting borrowed funds is considered the simplest and most affordable. The five-factor is more accurate, but, as a rule, stock exchanges, credit organizations, and large joint-stock companies resort to it. For smaller companies, the use of two-factormodels.
In addition to Altman, the concept and signs of bankruptcy were thoroughly studied by the British scientist Richard Tuffler, who developed his own four-factor system for predicting the probable ruin. The rest of the well-known methods either do not give an accurate assessment, like the Beaver scorecard, or were created on the basis of existing ones, like the Springate model - a kind of Altman scheme. For a more accurate assessment of the state of the company, the probability of bankruptcy is most often analyzed by several methods at once. In any case, for such a complex event, it is better to use the services of experienced professionals who deal with this issue professionally. Analysis on your own may not give an accurate forecast, and sometimes lead to a completely opposite result. And from here to collapse is within easy reach.
Problems, but not those
However, not everyone believes that a sinking ship should be saved. Often, its immersion to the bottom is enhanced by increasing the number of holes in the bottom. So it is with troubled companies. Sometimes they are deliberately ruined, squeezing out the maximum benefit for its owners and leaving them without the funds necessary to pay off payments. Signs of deliberate bankruptcy are not easy to identify, but even here a simple technique has been developed based on a study of the company's production activities and the volume of current assets at different times.
Deliberately causing an organization to go bankrupt, or even fictitiously declaring oneself as such in order to avoid paying debts, is punishable by law. In the first case, the companycase becomes insolvent, in the second - has the means to fulfill obligations to creditors, but tries to legally avoid this. In any case, the interests of partners will be infringed and they will have the right to seek the return of their money through the courts.
Having revealed the signs of fictitious bankruptcy and proving the criminal intent of the initiators of the illegal scheme of their own enrichment, they will be punished depending on the amount of damage caused to the parties concerned. In addition to the imposition of fines, which can reach 800 minimum wages, the real imprisonment of fraudsters for up to six years is also provided.
Debt
The sooner the lender, having found signs of bankruptcy in his business partner or partner, goes to court, the more chances he has to get his money back. Maybe not completely, but at least partially. As already noted, the main indicators for unrest are a debt of over five hundred thousand rubles for an individual and three hundred for a legal entity. The term of insolvency of payment is from three months and more. Both the amount and the terms cannot be less. Otherwise, the court will not even accept the application for consideration. If the debtor himself has not made any attempts to take the first step, although he is obliged by law, the creditors have the right to do so. One application is enough, group or individual - it does not matter. Even if it is impossible to fulfill obligations to one lender, while paying off debts to several dozen creditors, an arbitration court cannot be avoided.
Companies are in no hurry to declare their insolvency themselves also because if they are declared bankrupt, the director and accountant may be banned from engaging in relevant activities for several years. These restrictions do not apply to owners. But an ordinary citizen who decides to declare himself bankrupt as an individual should remember that for the next five years he was ordered to go to credit institutions. In addition, for three years he will not have the opportunity to hold leadership positions, working at an enterprise or organization of any profile. An essential sign of the bankruptcy of an individual entrepreneur is a debt of five hundred thousand rubles and three months of delay in payments, and among the consequences is a five-year ban on similar activities.
You can't figure it out without arbitration
Litigation is possible only if there is an application for the debtor. First of all, the reasons that led to the losses are clarified. The emphasis is on identifying signs of fictitious or deliberate bankruptcy, since in this case the procedure will go according to a different scenario than the debtor could have imagined. What measures will follow in case of detection of a forgery is described above in detail. The presence of signs of a real bankruptcy launches the process of restoring the company's solvency, as a multi-stage set of measures has been developed to save firms from ruin.
At the first stage, the introduction of observation is possible. This is followed by financial recovery and external management. This is only ifobservation will show that the company can still be saved. If the impossibility of its revival is established, the complete liquidation of the company as a legal entity will follow. In this case, in the aggregate, the court will take into account all the signs of insolvency. Bankruptcy will be established only if all the data indicate the complete collapse of the enterprise or organization. For each stage of the procedure, the corresponding actions and powers of the specialists involved in the process are prescribed. The best result of the second and third measures is the return of the solvency of an individual. But this is not always possible.
Provisional Government
The first three to four months is the observation phase. A court-appointed temporary arbitration manager examines the situation directly in the process of monitoring the main activities of the company on the spot. Having identified and confirmed signs of bankruptcy of an individual, he studies the possibility of expanding interaction with creditors, calculates the likelihood of repaying debt by increasing production volumes or other effective measures. At the same time, responsibility for the safety of the debtor's property also passes to the temporary manager. It is impossible to sell or buy anything without his knowledge.
At the enterprise or organization, the main production process during the observation period takes place as usual. The entire management staff remains in their places, fulfilling their personal duties in full. During this period, signs of bankruptcy are evidenced byonly the presence of an arbitration manager. He works closely with both the directorate and the debtor's investors and creditors. All payments on debts, transfers of dividends and similar funds for the purpose are temporarily suspended.
Crumbs to rescue
If the company has available funds that can be used to stabilize liquidity, the court has the right to proceed to the second stage of the bankruptcy procedure - the reorganization or financial recovery of the company. This opportunity can be used if the analysis of the company's activities has shown that with a certain optimization of the current financial situation, it can be brought out of the crisis. All factors relevant to the concept and signs of insolvency are taken into account. Bankruptcy and subsequent liquidation of the company is an extreme version of the whole process. It is resorted to using all other possible methods. In addition, the court cannot make such a decision on its own. It must be supported by the founders and creditors.
For the period of recovery, which lasts from one to two years, the management of the company completely passes to the protege of the arbitration court. By his decision, some managers of the company may be involved in the implementation of certain activities. However, they are not en titled to influence the process without the consent of the manager, including the president or general director of the organization. Financial recovery, along with supervision, is also a sign of bankruptcy proceedings, so it’s not worth deceiving yourself that difficult times are behind the company. ATduring this period, all payments on debts cease, all measures are taken to preserve production and any other property, activities are carried out strictly according to the plan developed and agreed with creditors. As a rule, all activities are carried out to the maximum at the expense of existing funds, but in certain situations it is possible to attract additional ones. If the chances of saving the company are high enough, investors can take the risk and put in some amount to even out the situation.
The board is on track
Bankruptcy, the concept and features of the procedure as a whole can be considered only in combination, if we are not talking about a simplified scheme, the only task of which is the liquidation of a legal entity. When the company is rescued, monitoring and financial recovery measures are followed by the introduction of external management. Together with rehabilitation, this period can last two years, but no more. This is the statutory deadline for the last two stages of the bankruptcy procedure, each of which requires a separate decision of the Arbitration Court.
The external manager has the right to:
- manage the debtor's assets independently, based on the action plan previously agreed with creditors;
- carry out transactions, including termination of contractual obligations, unfavorable for the debtor;
- conclude settlement agreements with the debtor's creditors, etc.
The entire safety of the assets of the enterprise, where external management has been introduced, also falls on the interim management. But alsothe manager appointed by the Court of Arbitration is also en titled to insure property at its own discretion. It should be remembered that supervision, financial recovery, and external management are all separate signs of bankruptcy of a legal entity. Restoring the solvency of a recent debtor leads to the closure of the case and the return of the company to its owners. And if the application of measures to save the company is ineffective, the next stage is its liquidation.
Assets de alt with
The sale of the debtor's assets to pay off the debt is the last sign of the bankruptcy of an individual and legal entity, as well as an individual entrepreneur. It is carried out on the principle of competitive selection. The liquidity of the debtor is put up for auction, the proceeds from the sold property are transferred to creditors in the order of priority after the repayment of legal costs, payment of bills accumulated during financial recovery and external management. In addition, after the above payments are made, the next applicants for compensation are the debtor's employees who received disability or other harm to he alth while working at the liquidated enterprise. Then wage arrears are paid off, and only then the rest of the proceeds are transferred to creditors.
As you can see, the bankruptcy procedure is a rather long and complicated process if you decide to save the company. Quickly and less costly, it goes through a simplified scheme, when its only goal is the official liquidation of the company. In this case, at the initial stage, the concept and signs of bankruptcy, as in the three-stage procedure, are similar. However, neither surveillance nor sanitation and arbitration management are introduced as they are not needed.
