An index of corporate financial performance
Corporate financial performance rebounded somewhat in 3Q 2023. And there was a slight decline in the number of ‘zombie’ companies globally. However, an increase in the number of distressed companies suggests a prolonged and gradual recovery ahead.
Discover which countries and territories are performing among the best. Assess financial performance across sectors. Identify distressed companies. Compare your company’s financial performance against tens of thousands of public companies around the world. KPMG’s Financial Performance Index (FPI) is designed to be one of the clearest indices of corporate financial performance.
For investors, financiers, regulators and governments, the KPMG FPI seeks to provide insights into the relative strength and health of key markets and sectors. With millions of datapoints going back to 2017, these long-term trends can help you spot signs of improvement or impending distress.
Updated quarterly, this webpage allows you to interact with the data to analyze shifts, trends, and related opportunities. You’ll also find key highlights from the most recent quarter and a spotlight on fast-moving industry sectors.
Corporate financial performance improved in the third quarter of 2023, with the average KPMG FPI score rising from 88.12 in 2Q23 to 90.62 in 3Q23 globally.
South America continued to be the best-performing region with a KPMG FPI score of 92.61, followed by Asia at 92.08. Oceania reversed its downward trajectory after two quarters of large drops, with KPMG FPI rising from 65.51 to 74.51 q-o-q.
Companies headquartered in Canada and Australia enjoyed the greatest increase in KPMG FPI scores, while Nigeria and Philippines saw the biggest declines, falling by 2.76 and 0.8 percent respectively. Australia reversed its previous quarter decline, rising 16.9 percent to 73.38 in 3Q23.
Chemicals and Manufacturing remained the top performing sectors with FPI scores of 95.24 and 95.16 respectively, while Raw Materials and Natural Resources and Biotechnology returned the lowest FPI scores, with Raw Materials falling 1 percent to 86.07 over the quarter.
There was a slight decrease in the number of ‘zombies’ in 3Q23, from 1,312 to 1,300, representing around 3.86 percent of companies in the study.
Corporate financial performance decreased in the second quarter of 2023, with the average KPMG FPI score falling from 89.44 in 2Q23 to 88.12 in 3Q23 globally.
South America emerged as the best-performing region with a KPMG FPI score of 91.44, followed by Asia at 90.56. Oceania experienced a second consecutive quarter of large drops, with KPMG FPI falling from 73.21 to 65.1 q-o-q.
Companies headquartered in Brazil and France enjoyed the greatest increase in KPMG FPI scores. Those with headquarters in Canada and Australia saw the biggest declines, falling by 23.95 and 12.20 percent respectively. It is a significant drop for Canada after a steep rise of 24.93 percent in 1Q23.
Manufacturing and Chemicals remained the top performing sectors, while Raw Materials and Natural Resources, Biotechnology, Agriculture and Husbandry were the sectors with the lowest FPI scores in 2Q23.
There was a notable increase in ‘zombies’ in 2Q23, from 1,140 to 1,312, representing around 3.82 percent of companies in the study.
Corporate financial performance remained flat in the first quarter of 2023, with the KPMG FPI rising marginally from 89.42 in 4Q22 to 89.44 in 1Q23 globally.
Asia emerged as the best-performing region with a KPMG FPI score of 91.65, followed by Africa at 89.09. The largest drop was experienced by Oceania where KPMG FPI fell from 78.79 to 73.21 q-o-q.
Companies headquartered in Canada and Vietnam enjoyed the greatest growth in KPMG FPI scores. Those with headquarters in Türkiye and Australia saw the biggest declines, falling from 97.26 to 92.19 and 78.09 to 72.31 respectively.
Chemicals and manufacturing as the top performing sectors, while Raw Materials, Technology and Telecommunications and Media and Entertainment sectors witnesses the greatest growth in 1Q23.
There was an increase in ‘zombies’ in 1Q23, from 995 to 1,140 representing around 3.24 percent of companies in the study.
Sector performance
Raw Materials and Natural Resources and Agriculture and Husbandry experienced the strongest recovery in FPI scores in the quarter (up 8.72 percent to 86.07 and 5.07 percent to 92.86 respectively). Strong performance was also recorded in the Metals and Mining subsector (up 9.4 percent to 85.21 in 3Q23 from 77.89) and the Agricultural Products subsector (up 5.07 percent to 92.86 from 88.38)
On an annual basis, Life Sciences Tools and Services, as well as the Aerospace and Defense sector, witnessed the strongest growth of any sector, with rises of 0.69 and 0.30 percent respectively. During the same period, the greatest declines were experienced in the Biotechnology sector (down 2.34 percent) and the Infrastructure and Real Estate sector (down 1.35 percent year-over-year).
Sector performance across regions
In 3Q23, the Agriculture and Husbandry sector enjoyed notably strong performance in South America (97.27) and Europe (96.85). At the other end of the scale, 3Q23 saw globally distressed sector Biotechnology post challenging results in Oceania and North America with KPMG FPI scores of 72.9 and 84.39 respectively.
Overall, Oceania witnessed the most distress with 16 of 24 sectors reporting a KPMG FPI below 90. This was due to declining performance in Life Sciences Tools and Services (68.82), Business Services (70.26), Biotechnology (72.9) and Chemicals (77.82).
Zombies
Zombies are companies close to default (scoring 0 on the KPMG FPI) for three or more consecutive quarters.
The number of zombies decreased 0.91 percent this quarter (from 1,312 in 2Q23 to 1300 in 3Q23). While this is a good sign, it is worth noting that – year-over-year – the number of zombies has more than doubled (from 696 in 3Q22). Many of these companies may already be experiencing distress or working through restructuring strategies.
In 3Q23, the sectors with the highest proportion of zombies included Raw Materials (with 14.6 percent zombies), Biotechnology (12.6 percent), Technology and Telecommunication (6.9 percent) and Pharmaceuticals (6.3 percent).
What is the KPMG FPI?
TThe KPMG FPI distills a range of market and financial performance indicators into a single index covering nearly 40,000 public companies around the world.
The index scores companies on a scale of zero to 100, with zero indicating serious distress and 100 being best performing.
Since many companies tend to perform well for most of their lifespans, there is a natural bias towards a higher quartile score. As such, around 80 percent of the companies in our index score between 85 and 99.
As the KPMG FPI is a logit2 model, a drop below the average can very quickly lead to an index score of zero.
When exploring this data, therefore, readers should consider:
- The absolute score (0 to 100)
- Comparisons across geographies
- Comparisons across sectors
- Relative performance against peers
- Trends over time
- Macro events which are driving trends
- Expected macro events which may affect future scores
Read more about our methodology
Want to see your company’s score?
To understand your company’s current index score, or to uncover deeper insights about specific markets or segments, contact your local KPMG member firm. KPMG’s global network of KPMG professionals have the data, sector and geographic expertise to help you understand your score and tie it back to your business needs. Whether it is benchmarking, identifying targets, comparing sectors or looking for trends over time, KPMG professionals can connect you right to the information you need to capitalize on your opportunities. That’s our business. Please contact us at in-fmkpmgfpi@kpmg.com to find out more.
Regional performance
Asia witnessed mild growth (up 1.68 percent) driven by strong FPI scores of Türkiye-headquartered companies (from 93.02 to 96.11 quarter-over-quarter) followed by Japan-headquartered companies (from 94.92 to 94.3 in 3Q23).
Oceania and North America experienced the largest improvements in their FPI scores, rising by 14.44 percent and 6.09 percent respectively.
Country and territory performance
An analysis of the KPMG FPI country data indicates that, over the year ending 3Q23, the largest gains in KPMG FPI were experienced by companies headquartered in Canada (56.10 percent), Australia (15.58 percent), Singapore (11.59 percent) and Malaysia (9.18 percent).
Those headquartered in Nigeria and Philippines saw a decline in average KPMG FPI scores over the year, falling by 2.76 percent and 0.78 percent respectively.
Distressed countries and territories
Given the natural bias for the KPMG FPI to score well-performing companies at high levels (typically between 85 and 99), this index provides significant opportunity to spot distressed companies that fall outside of the normal range.
By linking market and financial performance indicators together in a single index, the KPMG FPI differentiates between market-wide drops and company underperformance.
In 3Q23, the KPMG FPI identified 2174 companies with a KPMG FPI score of zero. Low-ranking companies were most common in USA (686), Canada (440), Australia (267) and Sweden (150).
For significant underperformance, please see Zombie section.
Methodology
The KPMG Financial Performance Index measures the financial health of individual companies. Based on an initial pool of more than 40,000 companies globally, KPMG FPI identifies those companies, sectors, regions, countries and territories that are performing well and those that are underperforming. A higher score on the KPMG FPI represents strong performance.
The KPMG FPI model draws from the Logit Probability to Financial Default model (developed by John Campbell, Jens Hilscher and Jan Szilagyi), which is based on eight explanatory variables encompassing financial and market variables, to arrive at the overall financial health of a company. The KPMG FPI is based on raw data from S&P Capital IQ database.
We release our insights publicly every quarter. However, the model can be run on any given day to reflect live market changes, so please reach out to your local KPMG member firm or contact us at in-fmkpmgfpi@kpmg.com if you would like additional information.
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1A distressed company is one having a KPMG FPI score of 0.
2In statistics, the logistic model (or logit model) is a statistical model that models the probability of an event taking place by having the log-odds for the event be a linear combination of one or more independent variables.