Business and Financial Risks in Indian Corporate Sector

Risks and returns go hand in hand. Corporates cannot do away with the associated risks completely. Taking no risk may mean forgoing rewards. With the notable changes in the Indian business environment, arising from the tremendous competition among business firms, the earning trends and the financing policies in the Indian corporate sector have also changed remarkably. It has led to significant changes in the patterns of business risk (BR), financial risk (FR) as well as Total Risk (TR) associated with the corporates. So, in today's challenging and competitive environment, the matter of designing appropriate strategies for managing risks in accomplishing the wealth maximization objective of corporates is of utmost importance. Risk management is essential for a firm to stabilise its earnings and to add value to its owners' wealth. Therefore, for the achievement of entity objectives, corporates should manage risk as per their risk appetites. In this backdrop, the present study seeks to analyse the BR, FR and TR associated with selected two hundred and seventy-three Indian companies (Private and Public) from twenty-two industries during the period of 2001-02 to 2010-11.