Business and Financial Risks in Indian Corporate Sector : An Empirical Analysis in the Post-Liberalization Era

In today's challenging and competitive environment, the task of designing appropriate strategies for managing risks in accomplishing the wealth maximization objective of corporates is of utmost importance. The opening up of Indian economy in 1991 has injected tremendous competition among business firms. With the significant changes in the business environment, the earning trends and the financing policies in the Indian corporate sector have also changed remarkably. It leads to notable changes in the pattern of business as well as financial risks associated with the corporates. Although much attention has been paid to analyze the issue relating to business and financial risks during the last few decades, the same has not been addressed with due importance in the post-liberalization period, particularly in the Indian context. In this backdrop, the present study seeks to analyze the business and financial risks in the Indian corporate sector during the period 1995-96 to 2006-07 and also to examine whether its findings conform to the theoretical arguments. The sample size of the study consists of 50 companies which have been selected by taking the top five companies (based on net sales revenue) from each of the 10 selected industries.