An index of corporate financial performance
Corporate financial performance showed signs of improvement in the fourth quarter of 2023, with a slight decrease in the number of 'zombie' companies and distressed companies, indicating a recovery in corporate financial performance.
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 increased in the fourth quarter of 2023, with average KPMG FPI scores increasing from 90.7 in 3Q23 to 91.2 in 4Q23 globally.
Africa emerged as one of the best performing regions with a KPMG FPI score of 90.3. However, the largest drop was observed in Oceanic region, where the score declined from 75.6 to 70.9 from third to fourth quarter.
Companies headquartered in Pakistan saw major increase in FPI scores from 84.7 to 88.4, while those with headquarters in Australia and Canada observed declines from 74.5 to 69.5 and 65 to 61.1 quarter over quarter, respectively.
Utilities emerged at the top amongst sectors with FPI scores of 92.7, while on the flip side Biotechnology was one of the weakest performing sectors with FPI scores of 87.
There was a decline in the number of ‘zombies’ in 4Q23 from 1,300 to 1,162 in 3Q23. The zombie companies accounted for 3.4 percent of the companies in scope.
Corporate financial performance slightly decreased in the third quarter of 2023, with the average KPMG FPI score falling from 91.4 in 2Q23 to 90.7 in 3Q23 globally.
Oceania became the best-performing region with a KPMG FPI score of 75.6, followed by North America at 86.6. South America reversed its upward trajectory from the previous quarter, with KPMG FPI score falling to 92.7 this quarter.
Companies headquartered in Canada and Australia enjoyed the greatest increase in KPMG FPI scores, while Chile and Nigeria saw the biggest declines, falling by 5.9 and 1.8 percent, respectively. Canada reversed its previous quarter decline, with its KPMG FPI score rising to 65.0 in 3Q23.
Raw Materials and Natural Resources, and Energy were the top performing sectors with FPI scores of 86.1 and 94.0 respectively, while Infrastructure and Real Estate, Aerospace and Defense, and Pharmaceuticals were the weakest performing sectors, with FPI score falling to 91.2, 93.5 and 92.4 respectively, 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 increased in the second quarter of 2023, with the average KPMG FPI score rising from 89.5 in 1Q23 to 91.4 in 2Q23 globally.
South America emerged as the best-performing region, followed by Asia. Oceania experienced a big drop in this quarter, with KPMG FPI score falling from 73.1 to 64.6 quarter-over-quarter.
Companies headquartered in Chile and Brazil enjoyed the greatest increase in KPMG FPI scores. Those with headquarters in Saudi Arabia saw the biggest declines.
Packaging Products is among the top performing sectors, while Raw Materials and Natural Resources and Energy were the weakest performing sectors.
There was a notable increase in ‘zombies’ in 2Q23, from 1,140 to 1,312, representing around 3.8 percent of companies in the study.
Sector performance
The Utilities sector experienced growth in the last quarter with 0.3 points increase in the index score. Furthermore, robust performance in the Utilities sector was supported by the Electric Utilities subsector which saw a rise in FPI score of 2.5 points in 4Q23.
On a year-on-year basis, the Raw Materials and Natural Resources sector is among the strongest growing sectors, which increased by 1.2 points. However, significant declines in index scores were experienced in the Agriculture and Husbandry sector by 2.5 points and the Biotechnology sector by 2.4 points year-on-year.
Sector performance across regions
In the fourth quarter of 2023, different regions experienced varying performance in their sectors. Here is a breakdown of the regional comparisons:
Africa: The Travel and Hospitality sector displayed strong momentum, with an increase in index score of 1.1 points. However, the Business Services sector experienced headwinds and declined by 9.2 points.
Asia: The Utilities sector had a notable increase in index score of 0.7 points, while the Infrastructure and Real Estate sector observed a downward trend and observed a decline of 2.5 points.
South America: The Technology and Telecommunication sector performed well with an increase in the index score of 3.5 points. However, the Travel and Hospitality sector was the weakest performing sector, declining 7.6 points.
Europe: The Industrial Conglomerates sector’s average FPI score increased by 1.2 points, while the Media and Entertainment sector declined by 10.7 points.
North America: Contrary to the European markets, Media and Entertainment sector in North America increased by 0.6 points, while the Pharmaceuticals sector FPI score decreased by 9.8 points.
Oceana: Overall, Oceania faced the most distress, with 16 out of 24 sectors reporting a KPMG FPI score below 90. This was primarily due to declining performance in the Life Sciences Tools and Services sector (58.3), Pharmaceuticals sector (73.7), and Chemicals sector (78.9).
Zombies
Zombies are companies close to default (scoring 0 on the KPMG FPI) for three or more consecutive quarters.
The number of zombies decreased by 10.6 percent in the last quarter (from 1,300 in 3Q23 to 1,162 in 4Q23). While this is a positive indicator, notably year-on-year zombies have approximately doubled (from 2,558 in 2022 to 4,615 in 2023).
In 4Q23, the sectors with the highest proportion of zombies included Raw Materials and Natural Resources (194), Technology and Telecommunication (173) and Biotechnology (138).
What is the KPMG FPI?
The 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 logit 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 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
Africa displayed a positive momentum with KPMG FPI score increasing to 90.3 points. While Oceania and Europe declined in FPI scores, falling by 6.2 and 2.9 points, respectively, in this quarter.
Country and territory performance: Year-over-year biggest gainers and losers
An analysis of the KPMG FPI country data shows that in 2023, the largest gains in KPMG FPI scores were experienced by companies headquartered in Canada (36.5 points), Pakistan (11.3 points) and Vietnam (9.2 points)
Those headquartered in Australia, Sweden and Indonesia saw a decline in FPI scores in 2023, falling by 10.8 points, 9.7 points and 6.0 points, 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 accommodating market and financial performance indicators together in a single index, the KPMG FPI offers distinctive insights between market-wide drops and underperforming organizations.
In 4Q23, the KPMG FPI found 2,335 companies with a KPMG FPI score of zero. The low indexed companies were headquartered across USA (695), Canada (439), Australia (274) and Sweden (169).
Please visit the Zombie section to know more about significant underperforming companies.
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.