Northern Companies Struggling

Businesses in cities in the north of England are struggling, new figures released by the Insolvency Service reveal. 

The city with the highest business insolvency rate in the country is Bradford, the figures show, with 0.6 per cent of business in the city failing. 

Manchester is following close behind, with business insolvency rates of 0.57 per cent – a rise of 17 per cent for the first three months of the year, according to the new figures. 

There’s better news for the construction industry across the UK, with a small drop in the total number of administrations in the second quarter, down from 87 to 86, compared with the first quarter. Construction companies are particularly vulnerable as problems with a project can lead to cost overruns. 

KSA Group is helping a number of SME construction companies with sales ranging from £800k to £20m. These companies are all viable, but cost overruns or bad debts have pushed them towards insolvency. 

However, struggling businesses that continue to trade are not included in the statistics, so the figures may not represent a true figure of the current situation, KSA Group marketing manager Robert Moore warned. “The actual statistics hide the true picture, as they don’t show how many companies are trading on a ‘stay of execution’ before the HMRC decides to call in their debts,” he said.  

Posted at 04:23PM Sep 02, 2010 by Marc Stenton in Insolvency  |  Comments[0]