Lo “sconto per vendita forzata” (forced sale discount) nelle aste fallimentari italiane: un’indagine sul campo

The article illustrates the main conclusions of a broader research aimed at investigating the existence of discounts in the bankruptcy sales of companies or business units due to the particular "forced" sales method, known in international literature as forced sale or fire sale. To this end, an empirical research on the Italian market of bankruptcy auctions was developed, analyzing a sample of 74 sales transactions that took place between 2013 and 2018. The database was prepared with the information gathered from the reports of assessment pursuant to art. 107 L.F., by the notices of sale published by the bankruptcy trustees or by the judicial liquidators, as well as by the clearing prices. The results obtained have highlighted, in a nutshell, that in the majority of cases the awards took place with a discount on the estimated value, while in the remaining cases the sale price was equal to the aforementioned value. On the other hand, no situations of premium sales have emerged, i.e. at sales prices higher than the values estimated by the experts. Having said that, the results of the research are meant to be a first guideline for the expert evaluator in identifying the existence of conditions for the application of a discount for forced sale and in estimating its entity.