01.04.09 AT THE SHARP END

Whatever way you look at them, the figures are bad. And no one's in much doubt that they're going to get even worse. According to the Insolvency Service, in the fourth quarter of 2008, there were 4,607 compulsory liquidations and creditors' voluntary liquidations in England and Wales, an increase of 51.6 per cent from the same period a year before.

In Scotland, there were 163 company liquidations in that period, a rise of more than 96 per cent from 2007.

There were 5,807 personal insolvencies in the same period, although the 154 per cent rise in bankruptcies is partly down to the introduction in April last year of the "low income, low asset" legislation, which made it easier for Scots to seek protection of bankruptcy.

David Hunter, head of business recovery and insolvency at Campbell Dallas, says even these figures don't tell the full story.

"With 370 new corporate cases in the last three months in Scotland, most insolvency practioners (IPs) are indeed busy," he says. "But this doesn't reflect perhaps at least three times this number in referrals to IPs where either there has been enough left to save some or all of it. Also excluded are the thousands of property-related companies held within the reconstruction or recovery departments of the major banks, awaiting better times."

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Publication: CA Magazine
Date: April 2009