Particularly for the retail and hospitality sectors, the last year or so has been pretty bleak. Big names like Toys R Us, Maplins and Poundworld all disappeared from the high street, whilst a long list of others, including Prezzo, Carluccio’s, Marks & Spencer. Mothercare and New Look have shrunk.
The number of insolvencies of individuals in the year was 115,299, continuing a steady year-on-year rise which began in 2015. This gives the highest annual figure since 2011.
The Insolvency Services has recently published the official insolvency statistics for 2018. As widely reported, pretty sorry reading they make. Here are our thoughts on how 2019 may look.
How do you spot the warning signs of a failing business?
The Insolvency Service has published the official insolvency statistics for England and Wales for the first quarter of 2018.
It’s quite common for individuals running companies to appoint their spouses or partners as directors of their company, even though there is no intention that the spouse or partner should take any active role in the company’s management. Apart from anything else, there may be sound tax mitigation reasons for doing so.
Even companies with the most rigorous credit control procedures run the risk of incurring a bad debt should a customer fail. For smaller companies, incurring a significant bad debt can result in the end of the business itself.
Many of us remember the revulsion that we felt in 2011 when watching the BBC’s Panorama undercover investigation into the private hospital in South Gloucestershire known as Winterbourne View.
It’s often said that a company shouldn’t trade whilst it’s insolvent. Trading whilst insolvent, even knowingly, is not necessarily unlawful although it is, of course, far from desirable.