Corporate insolvencies escalate in February

The number of business insolvencies in France continued to increase in February in all economic sectors while remaining below the pre-Covid period, the Banque de France reported on Wednesday. In total over the last 12 months, there are thus 43,886 failures against 29,124 a year earlier, an increase of 50.7%, details the central bank in its press release. The rise is actually much stronger if we exclude micro-enterprises and companies of indeterminate size, which alone account for 40,644 failures, or more than nine out of ten.

For the rest, the insolvencies of very small companies are thus up by 94.1% over one year, those of companies with between 10 and 49 employees by 87.7%, those between 50 and 249 employees by 82.4%, while those of medium-sized companies and large groups increased by 81%. In total, however, the cumulative failures of the last 12 months remain 14.2% lower than in February 2019, adds the Banque de France. And it is also further below the annual average of failures recorded between 2010 and 2019, which amounted to nearly 60,000.

Accommodation and catering particularly affected

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By sector, the rise in insolvencies is particularly strong in accommodation and catering, with 101.7% growth, however decelerating compared to January (108.7%). It is also very high in industry, with an increase of 68.5%, again decelerating compared to January (71%).

Business insolvencies had fallen to abnormally low levels during the health crisis, due to public measures to support business cash flow on the one hand and temporary changes in the dates for reporting defaults to commercial courts. on the other hand. The specialized firm Altares predicted in January that business failures would exceed their 2019 level in 2023, this year remaining the year with the fewest failures since the 2008 financial crisis.