Ian Defty comments on the Insolvency figures for Q3, 2011

In response to the latest insolvency figures released for the period July to September 2011, Ian Defty, partner at Kingston Smith & Partners, comments:

“These figures give little comfort to the economy as company liquidations show a slight rise and individual insolvencies show a slight dip.

“There have been a total of 4,242 liquidations in the quarter with almost three quarters of those liquidations choosing to utilise the services of insolvency practitioners through voluntary liquidations rather than the court route.

“Individual insolvencies have dipped from last quarter’s 30,513 to 30,219 this quarter.

“Of course, this last quarter covers the summer months, when the courts are partially closed and historically it is a quieter time in insolvency. The really interesting figures will be those of the last quarter, being the post-summer and the pre-Christmas period.

“The fact that there is little change in the figures quarter upon quarter shows that there is little, if any, movement in the economy. The banks, having suffered and continue to suffer poor press coverage, to avoid further bad publicity are doing little - if anything - to recover their outstanding debt and are choosing to sit on that debt.

“It is fair to say that there will be a lot of companies on borrowed time which are relying on the banks to continue to give them longer to repay their debt and, whilst the whole of Europe is seemingly in disarray over the problems currently in Greece and likely to spread, and with little change in the US economy, there is little room for optimism.”