Predicción de clasificaciones de riesgo de empresas chilenas con ratios financieros, usando análisis discriminante

The risk classifications are very important as an element that reflects the risk related to the operations with the different companies considering this risk influences the returns that may be required by the investors, so the objective of this research is to select a set of financial ratios that allow to correctly predict about 70% of the risk classifications of Chilean companies; demonstrating at the same time, that it is possible to predict such classifications, by means of financial ratios. The analysis is developed using a sample of 18 and 17 companies, which issued corporate bonds in 2012 and 2013 respectively and applying the statistical technique of Discriminant Analysis with statistical software, Statgraphics Centurion XVI. The results show that when using the ratios of: working capital / total assets, current ratio, debt ratio, long-term debt / capital, return on assets, and EBITDA margin, it is possible to correctly predict 88.89% and 94, 12% of the risk classifications assigned to companies, for the periods under study. It is, therefore, possible to affirm that the use of financial ratios for the correct prediction of risk classifications is effective, based on the fact that these are based on public financial information, which is later complemented with other kind of information.