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The Italian insolvency framework makes several restructuring tools available to firms and their creditors, so that distress does not necessarily lead to liquidation. This paper analyses two such instruments: debt restructuring agreements (DRAs) and compositions with creditors (CCs), both commonly used to reorganize distressed firms and preserve their continuity. These procedures typically involve large firms, particularly in the case of DRAs where judicial control over negotiations is milder. Firms using DRAs are in less critical economic conditions when they file for restructuring, but they do so after longer periods of distress. Despite their declared aim, the effectiveness of these instruments in terms of business continuity is limited: many firms that use them end up exiting the market, in particular in DRAs. Firms that survive display only partial recovery, which is relatively more intense in CCs. However, the apparently superior performance of CCs is overshadowed by the long duration of restructuring, which may prevent us from observing definitive outcomes.

Italian Abstract: Lo studio fornisce un ampio insieme di nuove evidenze empiriche sull’impiego e sul funzionamento delle procedure di concordato preventivo basate su un dataset, appositamente assemblato, che costituisce la piu ricca base informativa al momento disponibile. I concordati sono impiegati prevalentemente con finalita liquidatoria (circa il 70 per cento dei casi). La percentuale di concordati per i quali quanto previsto nel piano e effettivamente realizzato e pari a meno di un quarto. Il recupero dei crediti assistiti da garanzia avviene in misura pressoche integrale in tutte le tipologie di concordato, mentre per i crediti non garantiti i tassi di recupero variano sensibilmente: dal 18 per cento per i concordati liquidatori al 37 per cento per quelli in continuita diretta (23 per cento per quelli in continuita indiretta). Analisi di regressione mostrano che migliori performance dei concordati preventivi sono associate a un minore grado di “cronicita della crisi” al momento dell’apertura del concordato, misurata con il tempo trascorso dalle prime difficolta persistenti che l’impresa incontra nell’adempiere agli obblighi nei confronti dei creditori bancari e l’avvio della procedura. English Abstract: The paper provides a large set of new evidence about the workings of judicial composition with creditors (concordato preventivo) procedures based on a new dataset, specifically compiled, which constitutes the richest source of information currently available on the functioning of these procedures. Judicial composition with creditors is mainly used for the piecemeal liquidation of firms (about 70 per cent of the cases). Less than a quarter of judicial compositions with creditors fulfill the provisions of the plans. The recovery rate for secured loans is almost 100 per cent for all types of compositions, while for unsecured loans, recovery rates vary considerably: from 18 per cent in the case of piecemeal liquidation to 37 per cent in the case of restructuring (23 per cent for judicial composition with creditors that provides for the sale of the entire firm or of a branch). Regression analysis shows that better performance of judicial compositions with creditors is associated with a less chronic crisis at the time the judicial composition with creditors is initiated, measured as the time that passes between the earliest persistent difficulties faced by the firm in fulfilling its obligations to bank creditors and the initiation of the procedure.