The Insolvency Service has released the 2018 Q3 insolvency statistics containing the latest data on company insolvencies from July to September 2018. The main message of the report was that an underlying number of company insolvencies increased both on the previous quarter and when compared to the same quarter in 2017.
During Q3 a total of 4,308 companies entered insolvency; this included 3,083 voluntary liquidations and 741 compulsory liquidations. The figures show an increase in company insolvencies year-on-year, with Q3 showing an increase of 8.3% compared to Q3 in 2017.The statistics showed that the construction industry had the highest number of insolvencies in the 12 months ending Q3 2018, which isn’t a surprise following The Channel Partnership Director, Tom Rolfe’s latest article in the Construction News Magazine. The article details the soaring bad debts within the industry and indication that claims are at an all-time high.
Tom comments: “2018 has been a tough year for companies to manage their trade credit risk. Not only have insolvencies been running at a much higher level in 2018 but many of the companies going bust have been companies that seem to be financially secure and which had good payment patterns right up to the point of insolvency. It’s caught out the credit insurers too – claims during 2018 have been almost double the claims in 2017. As for 2019, does anyone know?”