Despite, I would suggest some literature as per follows; 

Regards,

Iftekhar

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1303.pdf?4ca9f70deb4b072c54015aa30aac835b

http://swfa2015.uno.edu/J_Corporate_Governance_III/paper_180.pdf

https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/2471413.pdf

https://web.iima.ac.in/assets/snippets/workingpaperpdf/7456417362016-02-03.pdf

http://personal.lse.ac.uk/ANDERSOR/price%20of%20default%20risk%20120508.pdf

http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/1813-9450-5319

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.372.7385&rep=rep1&type=pdf

http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=3910529&fileOId=3910530

Please you can use, in addition, Management Turnover Rate, Compliance Rate and High debt profile (High Leverage) as proxy for financial distress. Asset Quality is a good proxy for default risk. Wishing you the best 

agree with CDS thoughts - with 2 notes of caution:

  1. Single name CDS should be viewed relative to broader indications of systemic risk changes (e.g. Sovereign Swap Spreads, broad index CDS).  Any specific (single name) CDS is subject to unique market ebbs/flows and therefore distortions relative to underlying credit.

  2. It is important to differentiate between short and long term risk horizons.  CDS, like any tradable instrument, are prone to overshooting.

you may also wish to consider the kmv model per crouhy, galai and mark's excellent paper in the 1990s

I would second Okereke's answer: Leverage. A key indicator is the Loan to Value ratio.

The Altman Z score model (a multivariate approach) is a significant distress prediction model for companies. Pls refer to the following links:

http://www.ijcbss.org/articles/ijcbss_v1_i2_58_80.pdf

www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/RJFA/.../14328

Hemlata

thank u all for sharing the valuable inputs

See my recent article about this. The link is given below

Article A three-stage dynamic model of financial distress