Page 11 - CCFA Journal - Fourth Issue

加中金融 Markets 市场论坛

阿尔特曼博士指出，在疫情发生之前，虽然经济仍处在相对良好的信用周期，但全球和美国的公司债和违约风险更高的 BBB 债持续增
长，陷入困境的僵尸企业也陆续出现，金融市场早已开始出现杠杆泡沫的征兆。

Dr. Altman pointed out that although the economy was still in a relatively favourable credit cycle prior to the pandemic, global and US corporate bonds
and BBB bonds with higher default risk continue to grow while zombie companies in need of bailouts continue to appear. The financial market has
already begun to show signs of a leveraged bubble.

霍奇基斯博士从破产申请案件趋势的角度，揭示了疫情发生之前，陷入财务困境的行业（以能源和零售业为主）早在 2016-2017 年已
经步入《美国破产法》第十一章（“Chapter 11”）的重组程序，疫情只是进一步的催化剂。但出乎意料的是，相对小型的企业的破产
申请案件反而从疫情爆发的 2020 年 3 月初开始呈现下降趋势，尤其是在美国失业率整体上升的环境下小型企业的破产申请数量反而减
少。阿尔特曼博士补充道，不仅在美国，英国也出现类似的现象，英国的企业破产量在疫情爆发的 2020 年下降了 37%。王炜博士表
示在加拿大乃至全球也看到相似的情况，2020 年加拿大《公司债权人安排法》（“CCAA”）项下提出破产申请案件也是以大型企业
为主，而中小型企业的案件数量下降超过 30%。对此，专家们认为是来自政府的干预和央行采取的行动，以及为企业和金融市场提供
前所未有的支持力度解释了为何中小企业破产数量不增反降。

From the perspective of bankruptcy trends, Dr. Hotchkiss revealed that prior to the pandemic, financially distressed industries (primarily energy and
retail) have begun restructuring procedures as per the United States Bankruptcy Code (Chapter 11) as early as in 2016 and 2017 and that the pandemic
was merely a further catalyst. However, the number of relatively small companies filing for bankruptcy has unexpectedly shown a downward trend from
when the pandemic broke out in the beginning of March 2020. Especially unexpected is that despite the overall increase in the US unemployment rate,
the number of small companies filing for bankruptcy has decreased. Dr. Altman added that in addition to the US, the UK has also experienced a similar
phenomenon where the number of corporate bankruptcies in the UK has dropped by 37% after the pandemic broke out in 2020. Dr. Wei Wang
expressed that similar situations have been observed in Canada as well as in the world; bankruptcies filed under the 2020 Companies’ Creditors
Arrangement Act (CCAA) of Canada are mainly large companies, while the number of small and medium-sized company bankruptcy cases has dropped
by more than 30%. In this regard, experts believe that government intervention and actions taken by central banks, as well as unprecedented support
for companies and financial markets, explain why the number of bankruptcies of SMEs has not increased but rather decreased.

CCFA JOURNAL OF FINANCE June 2021
Page 11 第11页