Does financial distress induce companies to restructure their financing mix?

PurposeDistressed companies create panic among investors. The overall effect comes on the economy and leads to a degraded image and value of all the companies operating in a country. These distressing situations are harmful to the efficient development of a country in process of development. Financial distress (FD) is when a company or individual cannot promise to pay their obligations on time. Therefore, to analyze the threatening impacts of FD, the current study aims to reveal the impact of FD on the debt ratio (proxy of capital structure) of firms working in India.Design/methodology/approachPanel data analysis (PDA) has been used in the current study to analyze the data and generate novel results. The authors have considered the secondary data of firms present in the S&P BSE 100 index for ten financial years, i.e. 2010 to 2019.FindingsThis study has established that FD has no significant impact on the firm's capital structure. In addition, it has also been proved that asset size, learner's index, market capitalization and operating profit margin (OPM) have no interacting impact on the association between FD and the capital mix of firms.Originality/valueAs per the authors’ observation, no such study has been conducted till now that involves finding out the moderating impact of four different but significant factors of the business environment (assets size, learner's index, market capitalization and OPM) on the association between FD and capital structure of companies operating in a such an extensive and diverse economy.