The BRD Success-modeling Project

The Success-modeling Project is our effort to encourage statistical modeling of bankruptcy and turnaround management success. The Project is funded by grants from the Turnaround Management Association, the American Bankruptcy Institute, and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. The goal is to develop regression models that measure the difficulty of a turnaround and discover what treatment is most likely to enable the company to succeed. We look primarily to American academics to do the modeling, but seek the widest participation possible.

The BRD's mission is to encourage empirical research on large public company bankruptcies by collecting basic case data and making it available in analysis-ready form to academic researchers. The immediate goal of the Success Modeling Project is to build statistical models—essentially regression models—of the bankruptcy and turnaround process. The ultimate goal is to improve the process by adding a scientific dimension to what has long been an art. Each participant will define “success” for him or her self. The BRD already contains several variables that measure aspects of success: (1) whether a plan was confirmed, (2) whether the debtor emerged from bankruptcy as a stand-alone company, and (3) whether the debtor refiled bankruptcy within five years. The BRD also provides tools for linking to other measures of success, including post-emergence income, operating income, and leverage. Over the coming months, we will be adding more. We will supply all the data we consider essential to the Project, but participants are welcome to invent, collect, and analyze additional variables.

Participants will construct and run their own regression models—including whatever variables they choose. Obviously, some basic knowledge of statistics and rudimentary skill in using statistical software are needed to participate. If you have those, the BRD data set will enable you to generate your own models within minutes of your download. We encourage you to post your models—on your own website or on ours. We also encourage you to publish your findings in law reviews and other bankruptcy or turnaround publications. We hope you will join in this path-breaking project.

Find out more about the Bankruptcy Success-modeling Project

• "The Practical Advantage from Empirical Research" from ABI Journal
• "The Bankruptcy Success Modeling Project: A Participant's Guide" from ABI Journal
• "The Bankruptcy Success Modeling Project" from The Journal of Corporate Renewal