More than 47,000 UK companies are on the brink of collapse after a 25% jump in the number of businesses facing “critical” financial distress in the final three months of 2023, according to a report.

It marks the second consecutive quarter-on-quarter period when critical financial distress has risen by a 25%, the latest “Red Flag” report by insolvency specialists Begbies Traynor found.

The construction and property sectors accounted for 30% of all businesses facing critical financial distress.

The quarterly rate of increase in the number of companies facing critical financial distress grew by 32.6% in the construction industry, by 41.3% in health and education, a quarter in real estate and property services and 24% in support…

Company insolvencies up 16% on July last year as cost hikes continue to bite

The number of companies that became insolvent in July was 16% higher than during the same period last year, according to official data.

In England and Wales, 2,191 businesses went bust, according to the Insolvency Service, compared with 1,890 in July 2023.

The figures included 320 compulsory liquidations – when a company is forced to shut down, usually because it has debts it cannot pay – which is the highest monthly number since before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fiat Panda is axed in the UK

Fiat has discontinued its current Panda model after a 12-year run.

The Panda, which is one of the smallest cars in the Italian firm’s range, has continued to be one of…

Tax debt has emerged as one of the biggest drivers of corporate insolvencies over the past year, with the latest data from Alares Insights showing April tracked at 50 per cent higher than pre-COVID levels.

According to Patrick Schweizer, author of Alares Monthly Credit Risk Insights, there has been a sharp increase in the number of companies seeking small business restructuring and voluntary administration since the beginning of this calendar year, following an aggressive push by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to recover the record tax debt owed by businesses.

The uptick was noted by Schweizer in February when insolvencies jumped 50 per cent in the highest ever monthly increase recorded by the report. Insolvencies peaked in…

In response to growing concerns about the company’s insolvency, Byju Raveendran, the Founder of the cash-strapped edtech company BYJU’S, informed employees in an email that their July salaries would be paid once he regains control of the business. In recent months, the struggling business has repeatedly delayed paying employees their wages. The business claims to have paid all of its employees their salaries for April and May, but it has not yet settled all of its payments for February and March. After the NCLAT approved a 158 million settlement between the edtech company and the BCCI on August 2, BYJU’s avoided a potential “death.” 

However, on August 14, the Supreme Court of India issued an interim order that stayed the…

Companies associated with Du Val Group, a developer of large-scale residential property projects in Auckland, have been placed into statutory management by the Government under the Corporations Act.

The group, founded by developers Kenyon and Charlotte Clarke, was placed into receivership earlier this month by the Financial Markets Authority.

In a statement on the Government’s action, the Financial Markets Authority said the Corporations Act provides remedies to deal with “complex corporate failures”, and is most appropriate where a company has, or may have been operating “fraudulently or recklessly”.

Alternatively, the Act is also used where the ordinary law is “inadequate to deal with an orderly wind up of the companies”.

“In this case,…

Almost a week has passed since Shohei Ohtani addressed rumors and speculation that he was involved in gambling, which some say is baseball’s greatest sin, after his interpreter and friend, Ippei Mizuhara, was fired by the Dodgers for his connections to a bookmaker someone who handles bets and money gambling for sports betting. 

Mizuhara has a long history with Ohtani, whom he met back in 2013 while working for the Japanese baseball league’s Nippon Ham Fighters, Ohtani’s first professional team, and has become more than just an interpreter for the star.  

The scandal involves 4.5 million dollars’ worth of gambling debt Mizuhara allegedly accumulated with a Southern California bookmaking operation. Ohtani’s…

LONDON (AP) — German tennis legend Boris Becker was discharged from bankruptcy court in London after a judge found Wednesday he had done “all that he reasonably could do” to repay creditors tens of millions of pounds.

Becker fell far short of repaying his creditors nearly 50 million pounds ($62.5 million) he owed, but Chief Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Nicholas Briggs said it would be “perverse” not to end the case given the efforts Becker made.

“On the spectrum of bankrupts who range from ‘difficult as possible and doing everything to frustrate the trustee’s inquiries’ to ‘co-operative, providing information and delivering up assets’, Mr. Becker clearly falls on the…