Managing a Credit Portfolio : A pilot study for Sandvik AB

• Main Authors: Hadziefendic, Adnan, Ullakko-Haaraoja, Kristian
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Högskolan i Gävle, Institutionen för ekonomi 2009
• Subjects: credit; credit portfolio; credit portfolio management; credit assessment; Business studies; Företagsekonomi
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-4566

Background: If a company does not have an optimal model for credit portfolio management they can face difficulties if they cannot forecast how the credit portfolio will behave during recessions. It can be explained with the fact that the management for the company might ask how the department forecasts a probable default within the credit portfolio. The senior management might want to know how the management for the credit portfolio measures how big credit losses can become. They might also want to know how it is possible to reduce the risk of big credit losses. The key factor in this type of questions is how it is possible for a company to forecast a default.          Purpose: Our purpose is to make a pilot study where we bring out the components that are necessary for the creative of an optimal model that is applicable on Sandvik’s credit portfolio.   Method: For the collection of empirical data, we used a qualitative method. The qualitative method was based on interviews with respondents from Scania Financial Services, Volvo CE International and Swedbank. In addition, we had discussions with our “employer” Sandvik about their credit portfolio management. We analyzed the empirically gathered data with a hermeneutic perspective.   Conclusions:                   Sandvik has a credit portfolio with many small companies which imply that it is a high risk portfolio. For that reason we brought out components that are necessary for their credit portfolio. The components we brought out were by a comparison between the theory and our cases. The components are following: parameters within country assessment, customer’s customer, payment history and payment behavior, judgement of customer’s management, utterances from the management, investment plans, cash flow analysis, stable earnings, key performance indicators, profitability, future forecasts, balance sheet analysis, legal situation, business expertise and securities.