Fashion companies in Poland. The influence of COVID-19 on liquidity assessment

Abstract This article demonstrates the changes that have occurred in the fashion sector during COVID-19. It outlines the complexity of assessing the liquidity level of retail trade companies. Moreover, it gives an overview of the key information included in the financial statements of fashion companies and highlights key points crucial to determining the liquidity risk of these companies. The article also presents the results of two models; these were estimated using the Arellano–Bover / Blundell–Bond linear dynamic panel-data estimator. Results present the real impact of COVID-19 on the liquidity of Polish fashion and retail trade companies (measured by cash holdings or cash ratio) during the analysed period of time. The analysed data cover the 11 quarters from Q1 2019 to Q3 2021 and were obtained from the quarterly financial statements of the 108 public companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange and NewConnect (Poland). The findings show that the fashion sector has lower liquidity than the broader retail trade sector. However, fashion companies during COVID-19 obtained higher cash ratios than retail trade companies. This article is a research-supported summary of the most important aspects of assessing the liquidity of fashion companies in light of the changes that have occurred in the industry due to the COVID-19 crisis.