User`s Manual - UCLA-LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database
Contents
1. 10 K or Exhibit A and one measure of assets and liabilities after emerging 10 K From those variables researchers can calculate the debtor s leverage at filing the debtor s leverage after emerging and the difference between the two Success might be defined as the reduction in leverage or the reduction in excess leverage with excess perhaps defined as excess over the industry norm g Speed Reorganization speed is not an end in itself But some regard reorganization speed as success because they believe that speed serves other important objectives The BRD provides several date fields from which case duration can be calculated in a variety of ways h Cost If reorganization outcomes are not sensitive to the identity the debtors professionals or the actions they take reorganization is merely a commodity The best reorganization would be the cheapest ProfFees10k is a variable that measures the debtor s total professional fees paid for the restructuring Because we collect these data from the 10 Ks filed by the debtor during and after the bankruptcy case this variable is available only for the minority of companies that survive and remain public 13 6 General Economic Conditions The BRD contains three categories of variables that measure the condition of the economy around the time the case was pending interest rates gross domestic product and the rate of inflation a Interest rates The BRD contains seven2. and 3 a field indicating whether the debtor sold all or substantially all of the debtor s assets in multiple 363 sales d Case cost The BRD contains a field indicating the total professional fees incurred in the restructuring e Case complexity or intensity The BRD contains a variable DktNumConf which is the docket number of the plan confirmation order Because docket numbers in each case begin with one and are generally assigned sequentially to documents as they are filed the docket number of the confirmation order is a good approximation of the number of documents filed in the case by the time of plan confirmation The number of documents filed in a case may be a useful indicator of the complexity of the case or the intensity with which the case was litigated f Court In large public company bankruptcies most debtors choose a court other than the one that serves their headquarters The BRD contains variables that identify the debtor s home court the court chosen for filing whether the case was transferred and the court in which the case was concluded Additional fields indicate whether the case was filed in a court other than the home court the distance from the debtor s headquarters to Delaware or the chosen court and the dates of case transfers Courts are identified by district city and judge g Case type Success rates may vary with whether the plan was prepackaged prenegotiated or neither They may also vary by wheth
3. large if that Annual Report reported assets worth 100 million or more measured in 1980 dollars about 287 million in current dollars Coverage includes cases filed under Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 whether filed by the debtors or creditors The BRD contains several fields designed facilitate its use along with data from other sources They include several standard company identifiers and bankruptcy court case numbers We keep the BRD in Microsoft Access update it monthly and distribute it in Microsoft Excel xslx and Comma Separated Values csv formats Along with the data files we include Stata Do Files that convert the CSV file to a Stata Dat file and run some sample regressions Stata users can generate research results almost immediately The BRD s mission is to promote big case bankruptcy research that leads to publication To accomplish that we make an abbreviated version of the BRD available to the public on line free of charge along with online software that facilitates research We license the Cases table for both commercial and academic use To facilitate collaboration among researchers we require that academic users provide brief about two to ten word descriptions of their research projects We post the descriptions on our website We also post citations to the growing body of research that is based on BRD data Financial support for the BRD has come from the UCLA School of Law grants from the National Conference of Ba
4. will find them easier and more intuitive than Weight variables The names of reprange variables contain the string reprange 11 Variable labels At the end the Do File calls another Do File BRD Labels do that assigns labels to each of the variables imported or created C Sample Selection Sample selection can be done manually or automatically Automatic sample selection occurs when a researcher specifies a set of variables for regression The statistics program includes only observations here BRD cases for which data are available for all of the independent variables The program will drop all other observations Automatic sample selection is problematic when BRD data are available but not representative For example some BRD turnaround manager field data are available for cases filed prior to December 1 2003 but they are few and may not be representative Researchers should consider excluding from their studies all observations with non representative turnaround manager data Researchers can easily do that using the TurnRepRange field In some numeric or date BRD fields we indicate that data are missing by entering data outside the plausible range for the field For example a missing date is indicated by entering 9 9 9999 in the date field A missing GVKEY is indicated 999999 Our Stata Do File changes these entries to missing If you do not use our Stata Do File you must make the changes in some other way before se
5. 007 Ninety nine of the cases are BRD cases Those data may provide a useful addition to the BRD cases for particular projects For a complete analysis of this additional data see Lynn M LoPucki and Joseph W Doherty Professional Fees in Corporate Bankruptcies Oxford 2011 V Data Contributions to the BRD The BRD seeks contributions of data from BRD users One such contribution is to advise us of specific BRD data that are incorrect It is helpful but not necessary that you furnish us with evidence Another such contribution is to furnish us with a field or group of fields that are of sufficiently general interest that inclusion in the BRD is appropriate If you plan to do that please let us know in advance so we can discuss the field protocols with you If we are able to agree on protocols we will replicate your data collection compare our data to yours resolve the differences and advise you of the results Our experience with this process is that we generally collect the data more accurately than the data contributor But the process is beneficial to us because the data contributor is sometimes right when we are wrong In collecting the data we ask that you observe these general protocols 1 Collect the data on or transfer the data to an Excel spreadsheet that contains the debtor companies BRD Primary Key numbers and names 2 Retain copies of or references to the documents from which the data were drawn and furnish t
6. IV Specific Research Types This part provides additional information and advice regarding specific types of research A Venue Professor Lynn M LoPucki initially designed the BRD for venue research Although the BRD contains a field showing the district in which the case was filed we recommend use of the city in which the case was filed instead Forum shopping is best regarded as a choice of city rather than district because forum shoppers are seeking particular judge panels and the judge panels exist at the city rather than the district level For example Boston and Worcester are both courts in the District of Massachusetts But forum shopping is to Worcester three of the four cases filed in Worcester at the same time it is from Boston 24 of 29 companies headquartered in Boston If the researcher measures forum shopping at the district level the researcher would understand the forum shopping from Boston and miss the pattern of forum shopping to Worcester altogether Depending on the purpose of the research researchers may wish to separate voluntary cases filed by debtors from involuntary cases filed by creditors Forum shopping by debtors and creditors are to different places for different purpose and have very different effects Lastly researcher will probably wish to separate Chapter 7 cases from Chapter 11 cases By filing under Chapter 7 the debtor voluntarily surrenders control of the company and the case to the bankruptc
7. SaleIntended variable indicates whether the debtor stated at the time of filing that it sought to sell the company If the debtor sought to sell and sold that can be regarded as success On the same basis plan confirmations can be regarded as successes and dismissals or conversions can be regarded as failures Debtors sometimes declare other goals at the time of filing but we have not yet gathered that data e Distribution size The size of the distributions to creditors and shareholders can be regarded as a measure of success The BRD contains variables that measure the amounts of secured claims and unsecured claims and the distributions in dollar amount to secured creditors unsecured creditors and equity The dollar amounts make it possible to calculate the ratios of distributions to claims ten cents on the dollar the portions of the distributions going to particular parties or the ratios of the distributions to other measures of firm size An example of the latter would be the ratio of the entire distribution to the entire market or book value of the company at the time the case was filed Lastly if adherence to the absolute priority rule is considered a bankruptcy objective success can be measured by how closely the distributions adhere to that rule f Leverage A commonly asserted objective of bankruptcy reorganization is to reduce debt to a manageable level The BRD has variables for two measures of assets and liabilities at filing
8. T 9 3 Company CharacteristIC8 ee e PAIRE a NU deco Ra AE RENE ERU eR ES aa 10 4 Case clidiaeteris Gb eoo ev ette tutes stets cast te id ferit erete orsa to dta Flos oca desde ieS 10 Do COSECOBEtCOITISS Coco estas da uS t tM tL a a athe 12 o General Economic Conditions scese eiu paste su as reas et im a 14 CP Representative Ranges oic olt e Uca dpe bte dtani pelea eii Lactancia 14 IV Specific Research Types used i e RUPEE RD ER RO I dnt I E aaa 15 EA E N E E EEE E EN E E AE EEEE E d quotas 15 B S cce ss TV OS TN T tees 15 C Professional Bees nitet vro ro sbcavevs a a a a ob cave spp eene Dr E Eae tee va Una 15 V Data Contributions to the BRD uo eee eecccssseecccceccececcseececceccececceceeeccneeceeeneeeseensneceeeneners 16 I Concept The UCLA LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database BRD is a dataset consisting of approximately 200 fields of data on each of the approximately one thousand large public company bankruptcies filed in the United States Bankruptcy Courts since October 1 1979 The purpose of the BRD is to promote research by providing a statistical analysis ready core of basic data The BRD includes data all large public company bankruptcies A company is considered public if it filed an Annual Report form 10 K or form 10 with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a year ending not less than three years prior to the filing of the bankruptcy case A company is considered
9. User s Manual UCLA LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database Lynn M LoPucki MG CNM segs calc M p E 2 II Get Started a sce ae cds a Dae et doe E E A E edet EE AO ae S 3 A Access to the online database iei eee rd Nei eor iere Dec eve ve taut esa i DR U E I REIS 3 By The BRD Fil Ss nesi E 3 I Read Me Erste das HI Sucssewetoase DEN UO Rn sot e ibes a aet Thee sues Mocda fusa bet eet 3 2 Whe Data Piles E NE 4 S Mhe BrOlOCOIS AE a Mot t sees E S 4 MUNG DO FES a T E E 4 Sample Selection gs rana nn ce aetna EEE EE E E E E E E E 6 D Simple Things You Can Do with the BRD eese enne enne nennen 7 1 Finda Case w o 7 2 Hind confirmed planson Pacer oos io etes eo adaxqo eue Vade udid india eec SUN N e STRUCT DN ERES 7 3 Make a list of cases that meet your PEERS oso as o rei MENO a edP ipee tu acca meena 7 4 Make tables and graphs showing trends or comparing cases eseseseeeeesesereseseresressereeesee 7 OS Enipizical StUOIeS eoe E EEE E a dne E 7 UL Fields orenean r n E a E A R E AE E EEA 8 A Feld naming prOQCOLS a tie e a a a a tomate 8 I For BRD y riables annuse o ROAD UU ASE I QE Rena e USER EEE de Co ERA oe 8 2 For stata variables cuts So basin ues tou Roa quite ac SO Dane oo Lec MES 8 B BRD IekL C rousse ehe hoa siete iere sa eda ime e d rd sue Ets 9 1 Company and Security Identifiers 3522 din doe quens depde e pe ioco ete eases 9 2 Case teres p
10. ability The BRD contain four measures of the debtor s profitability at each of two points in time The measures are net income EBITDA EBIT and income before extraordinary items IncomeBE A figure for each variable in each bankruptcy case is taken from the last 10 K for a period ending before the filing of the case and the first 10 K for a period ending after plan confirmation b Firm growth Reorganization success can also be defined as an increase in company size measured by revenues assets or employees BRD users can calculate these increases from BRD data as proportions a 20 increase in revenues or as normalized changes in dollar amount an increase in EBITDA equal to 5 of revenues 12 c Firm survival The BRD contains several variables that measure firm survival Emerge indicates whether the debtor s business continued to operate after plan confirmation Refile indicates whether the debtor refiled bankruptcy after plan confirmation Refile 5 indicates whether the refiling occurred within five years of plan confirmation Confirmation and refiling dates are available so the user can easily create a variable that measures the time to refiling We are in the process of collecting firm survival variables that indicate whether the company continues in business and if not the date and nature of its demise d Goal achievement Debtors may declare specific goals at the time the case is filed For example the BRD s
11. aminers committees unions attorneys distributions substantive consolidation and fee reviewers a Duration The duration of a case can be measured in a variety of ways To maximize the researcher s option the BRD supplies the dates of several key events 1 the filing of the case 2 the date the court approved sale of the company under section 363 3 the date the court entered the plan confirmation order 4 the date the court dismissed the case or 10 converted it to chapter 7 5 the effective date of the plan and 6 the date if any on which the debtor refiled bankruptcy By subtracting the date of an earlier event from the date of a later event researchers can quickly and easily create variables that measure the time elapsed between any two events b CEO turnover The BRD identifies the person who was CEO at filing and indicates that person s beginning and ending dates as CEO From that data researchers can construct several useful variables Examples include 1 the CEO s length of service prior to filing 2 how long the CEO survived in office after filing and 3 the rate of CEO turnover during bankruptcy c 363 Sales The BRD uses the term 363 sale to refer to a sale of all or substantially all of the debtor s assets in a sale that occurred prior to plan confirmation The BRD contains 1 a field indicating whether a 363 sale occurred 2 a field indicating the date on which the court approved the 363 sale
12. can a single field reflect all relevant aspects of a single phenomenon such as a DIP loan One field is necessary to identify the lender another to record the amount a third to record the date on which loan was made As a result many fields occur as field groups This section identifies some of the BRD field groups and indicates some of the fields that are in them Some fields are part of more than one group 1 Company and Security Identifiers Company and security identifiers enable users to link BRD data to data from other sources The links are crucial because they enable users to check BRD data against other sources and to import data from other sources for use with BRD data a Company name Company names frequently change over time and many potential data sources contain no identifier other than company name The BRD includes separate fields containing the companies names at filing upon emergence and after emergence b Coded company identifiers Companies are commonly identified by CIK numbers SEC GVKEYs Standard amp Poor s and CUSIP numbers Although these identifiers are intended to remain the same for the duration of the company s existence some change at the time of bankruptcy reorganization Accordingly the BRD contains separate identifiers for the filing and emerging companies c Coded security identifiers CUSIP extension and bond ISINs identify securities At reorganization securities are frequently cancelled and
13. contains two copies of the UCLA LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database One is an xlsx file the other is a csv file Humans tend to prefer the xlsx file machines tend to prefer the csv file The preference is in part because numbers generally appear in the xlsx file as integers with commas Numbers generally appear in the cvs file with full precision and without commas In the xlsx file linked data are actually linked and appear in blue with underlining In the cvs file linked data are not actually linked and appear in the format data URL 3 The Protocols File The BRD protocols are rules we wrote to guide our data collection and assure the comparability of data across cases They describe in detail the standard for inclusion of cases in the BRD the definition of the data in each field the rules for categorization of categorical data and in some instances descriptions of our data collection methods To fully understand the data in any field it is essential to consult the protocol for that field The first page of the Protocols file contains a Variables List The list contains the names of all BRD variables in the order in which they appear in the xlsx and csv Excel files With one exception the order is alphabetical The exception is that NameCorp the field containing the name of the bankrupt company appears at the beginning of the list We have tried to make the field names short and intuitive To make them intuitive w
14. date formats The data appear the same in Stata but users can set date ranges and subtract dates from other dates to determine the numbers of days in between 3 Identify missing date data In a few date fields the BRD stores the fact that data are missing by recording values outside the relevant range Missing dates are entered as 9 9 9999 The Do File changes those values to indicating that the values are missing 4 Identify missing numerical data In a few numerical fields the BRD stores the fact that data are missing by recordings values outside the relevant range For example missing bond prices are entered as 999999 The Do File changes those values to indicating that the values are missing 5 Identify missing alphanumeric data In many fields the BRD stores the fact that data are missing by indicating the reason For example missing data on whether a company emerged from bankruptcy may be indicated as pending if the case has not completed not classified if the case was dismissed without confirmation 363 sale or conversion to Chapter 7 and No data if we were unable to obtain data regarding emergence The Do File creates a new variable in which all of these values to missing 6 Generate categorical data The Do File converts categorical data to dummy variables if the category is sufficiently large to be useful in statistical analysis For example the Do File creates categorical variab
15. e concatenated words that described their contents To make them short we truncated the words We used capital letters indicate the breaks between truncated words To keep related fields together on the alphabetically organized Protocols and the Variables List we began the names of related fields with the same truncated word Thus for example all liabilities fields begin with Liab If you are already familiar with the language of big case bankruptcy you can probably guess from the field names what is included in each field If you can use the Variables List to get an overview of the BRD Otherwise use the Protocols 4 The Do Files The BRD Import Do File imports the UCLA LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database from the csv file to Stata prepares the variables for analysis and provides some examples of regressions based on the data For the Do File to work the user must point the Do File at the directory in which the csv file is located see line 5 of the Do File The Do File makes these changes to the data to prepare them for regression and other statistical analysis 1 Drop Chapter 7 at filing cases The Do File drops approximately 19 cases that were filed as Chapter 7s These cases do not share the characteristics of cases filed under Chapter 11 so most data on these cases are missing 2 Date variables Date fields are imported from the BRD as strings The Do File creates corresponding fields that contain the same dates in Stata
16. ebtor filed bankruptcy principally as the result of tort liability including fraud perpetrated against the debtor by insiders The variable includes mutually exclusive categories for fraud pension patent asbestos other products liability environmental liability and other torts Each of these categories or combinations of these categories can be converted to dummy variables and included as independent variables in success models Alternatively these categories can be used to exclude cases from or include cases in the regression analyses d Financial structure The BRD contains variables that measure the amounts of prepetition secured and unsecured claims in the debtor s prepetition financial structure as reported in the disclosure statements e Size The BRD contains variables that measure company size at or before filing four ways total assets total liabilities revenues and employees f Industry The BRD contains fields for each of the four levels of Standard Industrial Classification SIC Codes Researchers can convert any industrial classification or group of classifications that contains a sufficient number of cases into a dummy variable and include it in the regression models 4 Case characteristics The BRD contains fifteen categories of variables that measure case characteristics duration CEO turnover 363 sale of all or substantially all asses case cost case intensity court case type trustees ex
17. er the debtor or creditors initiated the filing The BRD contains variables measuring both The BRD also contains a field showing whether a voluntary case was filed under Chapter 7 h Trustees The BRD contains variables indicating whether appointment of a Chapter 11 trustee was requested whether the court ordered the appointment and if so the name of the trustee and the debtor entities for which the trustee served i Examiners The BRD contains variables indicating whether appointment of an examiner was requested whether the court appointed an examiner and if so the examiner s name 11 j Committees The pattern of committee appointments may be related to success The BRD contains fields indicating whether creditor equity and retiree committees were appointed k Unions The BRD contains fields indicating the numbers of employees and the number of union employees prior to filing and after emergence The BRD will soon contain fields indicating whether the debtor sought to reject a collective bargaining agreement and if so whether the court authorized rejection l Attorneys The BRD presently contains fields indicating the names of the lead law firms for 1 the debtors 2 the creditors committee and 3 the equity committee From these fields researchers can make dummy variables to determine whether service by particular law firms or service by law firms in particular groups or categories are related to success Relevant gr
18. he Do File are the same as the names of the corresponding variables imported from the BRD For example bondpricefile is a Stata variable that is similar to BondPriceFile as imported from the BRD In this instance the difference is that 999999 in BondPriceFile is missing in bondpricefile c Shifted variables A shifted variable is a numerical variable the values of which have been shifted by adding a nominal amount We shift variables to eliminate zeros and thus make it possible to log them The name of a shifted variable ends in 1 See above d Logged variables The name of a logged variable is the name of the variable logged preceded by In e Change variables If a variable measures a change over time the variable name begins with change The protocol for logged variable overrides this protocol so that the name of a changed variable that has been logged begins with Inchange See above f Weight variables Weight variables begin with wgt See above g Reprange variables Reprange variables contain the string reprange See above h Label definitions and label values We have not yet created either but eventually intend to create both B BRD Field Groups Often no single field can capture an entire aspect of a company case outcome or economic condition For example the size of a company or the length of a case can be measured in different ways no single one of which is best Nor
19. hem to us along with the data 16
20. l usually find a link to the confirmed plan Even if the court hasn t provided a link the confirmation order identifies the confirmed plan unambiguously assuring that you won t waste your time analyzing the wrong plan 3 Make a list of cases that meet your criteria Want a list of all 363 sale cases All prepacks in the Southern District of New York The largest cases by asset size You can generate standard lists in the online version of the database You can also generate customized lists using the filter and sort functions on Excel 4 Make tables and graphs showing trends or comparing cases Once you have lists of cases you can count them and use Excel to make tables and graphs Those tables and graphs can show trends or compare cases across districts cases sizes plan types and many other criteria We have posted some samples of tables and graphs made from the BRD on the BRD website 5 Empirical studies For those with graphing and statistical skills BRD data make publishable empirical studies quick and easy to do You can do instant empirical studies on the BRD website more sophisticated studies using the Excel version of the BRD and even more sophisticated studies if you are willing to collect relevant data not already contained in the BRD III Fields A Field naming protocols The BRD contains more than 180 variables The Do File creates hundreds more To make the variables easier to use we have followed nami
21. lecting your sample When selecting samples from the BRD based on date range it is usually preferable to select them based on date of case disposition rather than case filing A sample that includes all cases filed in recent years will include at least some pending cases Pending cases are non representative in many respects simply because they are not complete For example in a study of case duration the cases filed recently and disposed of quickly will have duration data The cases filed recently and not disposed of the longer cases will not have duration data The former will be included in the study the latter will be excluded from the study The effect will be to bias the study toward a shorter estimate of case duration A similar problem will occur in a study to determine the prevalence of 363 sales because 1 363 sale cases are of greater average duration than non 363 sales and 2 we do not collect 363 sale data systematically until the case is disposed of D Simple Things You Can Do with the BRD 1 Find a case on Pacer The BRD contains court identifiers and case numbers for all large public company bankruptcies filed in the United States since October 1 1979 The data include case transfers Find the case in the BRD and you have the information you need to go directly to it on Pacer 2 Find confirmed plans on Pacer The BRD contains the docket number for the confirmation order Go to that docket number and you wil
22. les for the most common SIC codes DIP lead bankruptcy attorneys turnaround management firms and judges at confirmation 7 Generate change variables In many instances the BRD contains measures of a single variable at different stages of the case For example it contains assets before filing at filing and after emergence and it contains the prime rate of interest two years before filing one year before filing at filing at disposition one year after disposition and two years after disposition The Do File generates change variables that represent the change in a variable between two dates If a variable should be logged prior to use the change variable is expressed as either the difference in the two logs or the log of the ratios It is a difference in ratios The names of change variables contain the string change 8 Shift zeros for logging The log of zero is undefined Stata will set it to missing In order to retain observations that are zero the Do File adds an immaterial increment 1 01 or 001 The increment depends on the distribution of the variable The increment is sufficiently small that the resulting shift will not meaningfully alter the results The names of variables adjusted in this manner end in 1 9 Generate logged variables Some variables are distributed lognormally To use them in analyzes that assume normally distributed data t tests regression these data should be converted to natural l
23. measures of the prime rate of interest around the time of the case They are the prime rate of interest 1 two years before filing 2 one year before filing 3 at filing 4 at case disposition confirmation dismissal or conversion 5 one year after case disposition 6 two years after case disposition and 7 at refiling From these seven variables researchers can construct additional measures of the changing cost of capital to reorganizing firms For example the ratio of the prime rate at disposition to the prime rate at filing indicates the degree to which the case occurred in an environment of rising or falling interest rates b Gross Domestic Product GDP The BRD contains seven measures of GDP around the time of the case They are GDP for the quarter 1 two years before filing 2 one year before filing 3 at filing 4 at case disposition confirmation dismissal or conversion 5 one year after case disposition 6 two years after case disposition and 7 at refiling From these seven variables researchers can construct additional measures the health of the economy For example the ratio of GDP at disposition to GDP at filing indicates the degree to which the economy improved or deteriorated during the case To the extent that the economy deteriorated the economy may partly explain any failure of the reorganization process Ratios among the prepetition GDP variables may be used to test for lagged effects of GDP changes o
24. n reorganization success c Inflation The BRD contains the consumer price index at filing and disposition Those variables make it possible to adjust any of the amounts reported in the BRD to real dollars They can also be used to explore whether inflation has any effect on the success of the reorganization process C Representative Ranges Bankruptcy case dockets are sporadically available for BRD cases from 1979 through October 1995 and uniformly available since that date Bankruptcy case files were sporadically available for BRD cases from 1997 through the mid 2000s At present case files are available for all cases filed after November 30 2003 the files are complete for all but three cases Case files are available for cases filed prior to December 1 2003 only if the cases remain open If the data in a field are from bankruptcy dockets or case files the field may be incomplete for the earlier periods while complete for the later periods If so the data we collected for the earlier periods may not be representative of all data for those periods To assist researchers in distinguishing representative from non representative data our policy is to add a field that indicates which data points for a particular field group are representative At present we have only two representative range fields for the turnaround manager field group and the five year refiling groups The Do File creates other representative range fields in Stata 14
25. ng protocols that enable users to intuit the nature of a variable from its name These are the protocols 1 For BRD variables a Concatenations BRD variables are concatenations of the first syllables of words that describe the variable For example AssetsBefore is the amount of the debtor s assets on the last form 10 K filed by the debtor prior to bankruptcy BondPriceFile is the trading price of the debtor s bonds at the time of the bankruptcy filing b Capitalization The first letter of each word is capitalized When working in Stata capitalization indicates that the variable was imported from the BRD not generated in Stata Variable generated by our Stata Do File do not contain capital letters d Date fields Regardless of subject the names of all date fields begin with the syllable Date e Variable subjects The names of variables related to a subject generally begin with the same syllable Thus variables indicating the distributions to stakeholders begin with Distrib gross domestic product variables begin with Gdp and variables indicating the numbers of employees in various categories begin with Empl One advantage is that variables related to a subject appear together when the fields are listed alphabetically 2 For Stata variables a Lower case The names of variables created by our Stata Do File are entirely lower case b Same name Aside from case the names of variables created by t
26. nkruptcy Judges Endowment the American Bankruptcy Institute s Anthony H N Schnelling ABI Endowment Fund the Turnaround Management Association and private gifts II Getting Started A Access to the online database An abbreviated version of the BRD twenty six fields is available on the BRD website http Nopucki law ucla edu The data on all BRD cases are available in three formats 1 by company 2 by interactive spreadsheet and 3 in user customized lists and statistics Design a Study 1 By company The website produces a page showing the seventeen items of data available on each BRD case Users seeking specific facts about particular cases will find this format easiest to use Users can reach it through the View Data and By Company tabs 2 By interactive spreadsheet Twenty six fields of data are available by interactive spreadsheet Users can choose which fields to display and order the data by any field Users can reach the interactive spreadsheet through the View Data and BRD Spreadsheet tabs 3 Design a Study Up to twenty six fields of data can be used to design customized studies The user selects the types of cases to be included in the study and the basis for case aggregation The program runs the study and reports case names data for the aggregation field and some basic statistics The statistics are frequency for each category of the aggregation variable and means medians and standard deviations for each categor
27. ogs We have identified several of these variables and the Do File performs the conversion The names of logged variables begin with the string In 10 Identify observations in representative ranges The BRD is a universe not a sample Some variables however are available or sufficiently complete to be representative only within particular date ranges For example turnaround manager and DIP loan data are representative for the period since November 30 2003 Refiled within five years after confirmation data are representative only for the period before January 1 2008 But the BRD also contains anecdotal data for some cases outside the range F or example some turnaround manager data are available for the period before November 30 2003 and many refilings made after January 1 2008 are included Because they are not representative the out of range data should be excluded from statistical analyses To facilitate their exclusion the Do File creates two kinds of variables Weight variables are coded 1 for observations in the representative range and 0 for observations outside it A weight variable can be used as a frequency weight in regression by adding tab var var2 fw wgtvariablename at the end Assignment of a zero weight excludes the out of range observations from the analysis The names of Weight variables begin with wet Reprange variables are dummy variables that include only observations within the relevant date ranges Some users
28. other securities issued At present the BRD contains CUSIP extension and bond ISIN fields only for the filing companies 2 Case Identifiers Case number plus court or court city uniquely identifies a bankruptcy case The BRD contains those fields of data for 1 each case that qualifies for inclusion in the BRD 2 that same case if continued in another court after transfer and 3 the first refiling by the emerging company 3 Company characteristics The BRD contains six categories of variables that measure the financial characteristics or condition of the debtor at the time the case was filed leverage profits and revenues bankruptcy cause financial structure company size and industry a Leverage The BRD contains two measures of leverage at filing AssetsBefore and LiabBefore are the debtor s total assets and total liabilities from the debtor s last 10 K prior to filing AssetsPetition and LiabPetition are the debtor s total assets and total liabilities from Exhibit A to the debtor s bankruptcy petition b Profits and revenues The BRD contains four measures of the debtor s profitability during the last year reported prior to bankruptcy They are net income EBITDA EBIT and net income before extraordinary items IncomeBEBefore The BRD also contains a set of sales variables that measure the debtors revenues in the last year reported prior to bankruptcy c Cause The TortCause field indicates whether the d
29. oups or categories might be law firm sizes law firms in particular geographical locations or law firms with particular levels of experience in large pubic company cases To facilitate the latter inquiry we plan to construct a field that indicates the number of BRD cases in which the firm served as lead That field will be a proxy for the level of experience of the attorneys as they served in each case m Distributions The BRD contains the amounts of money distributed to secured creditors unsecured creditors and equity holders under plans as specified in the disclosure statements accompanying the confirmed plans n Substantive consolidation In nearly half of large public company bankruptcy cases the estates of corporate group members are substantively consolidated so that creditors of different entities receive the same or similar distributions A BRD variable indicates whether substantive consolidation occurred o Fee reviewers A BRD variable indicates whether a fee auditor a fee committee a fee examiner a fee review committee or a joint fee review committee was appointed 5 Case outcomes Plan confirmation is the traditional measure of case outcome But the BRD contains eight groups of variables that plausibly measure case outcome firm profitability firm growth firm survival firm goal achievement distribution size leverage reduction speed and cost These are the dependent variables for success modeling a Firm profit
30. y court B Success Modeling Most of the fields added to the BRD in recent years have been added to facilitate success modeling Success modeling is the estimation of regression models that predict which cases will succeed by a variety of criteria Success models are most relevant and practical for the set of cases filed after November 30 2003 the Privacy Cutoff Court files are no longer available for the set of cases filed prior to December 1 2003 As a result many fields have substantial missing data for the pre Privacy Cutoff set of cases If a case lacks data for any of the variables in your regression model the entire case is omitted from the calculations If too many cases are omitted those remaining may no longer be representative and regression may produce a faulty model The solution is to use pre Privacy Cutoff data only for evaluating those variables that are generally available in the pre Privacy period Run the models you intend to publish using only post Privacy Cutoff data C Professional Fees The BRD contains professional fees data from Annual Reports 10 Ks filed by the bankrupt companies with the Securities and Exchange Commission Because only surviving companies that remain public file Annual Reports those data are sparse and may not be representative 15 The BRD website contains additional professional fees data drawn from the court files of 102 of the largest cases concluded from 1998 through 2
31. y of the duration assets employees and sales variables Users can reach Design a Study through the Query Data tab B The BRD Files We distribute the BRD in a zip file as an attachment to an email The zip file contains these seven files 1 BRD Import do 2 BRD Labels do 3 Protocols pdf 4 Read Me First pdf 5 UCLA LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database csv 6 UCLA LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database xlsx 7 User s Manual pdf 1 Read Me First The BRD is set up to run with Stata If you have Stata 10 through 13 installed these simple steps will enable you to begin running regressions 1 Make an empty directory in which to work 2 Click on the zip file to open it You will see six files 3 Choose Extract all files and point to the directory in which you will work 4 Open BRD Import do in the Stata do file editor window on the Windows menu 5 Change the path in the line that begins cd to point to the directory in which you plan to work 6 Change the file name in the line that begins insheet to match the name of the csv file 7 On the Tools menu execute Do or click on BRD Import do Either will run both do files 8 Click on more as necessary to see all the output If you are running Stata 13 the run will end with several regression tables if you are running Stata 10 the run will end with one regression table and the error message iDE c operator invalid 2 The Data Files The zip file
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