I attended workshop presented by the famous credit analyst and model builder, Professor Edward Altman. He is probably most famous for the invention of the seemingly immortal Z score, which is still in use 40 years after its creation in 1968.

During the workshop, Professor Altman recounted a story about how a company managed themselves out of near-failure using his Z score. I’m not denying the facts of the story, and I’m not even saying that use of the Z-score at this company (GTI Corporation) didn’t help the turnaround. I am proposing that using Altman’s Z-score to manage turnaround would be ill-advised.

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