The Banque de France announced on Wednesday that, according to provisional figures, cumulative business failures over the last twelve months had increased by 6.3% in March, while specifying that there was “no at this stage of the wave of bankruptcies to come”. However, the organization indicates that the increase must be interpreted with caution.
Indeed, during the reference period from April 2020 to March 2021, the number of insolvencies was very low due to the pandemic, which led to the temporary closure of commercial courts, and cash support measures for businesses .
Nevertheless, the recovery in insolvencies is accelerating, the rise for February being only 2.9%, according to final figures published by the Banque de France. At just under 30,000 over twelve months in March, their number is still 36.6% lower than that recorded two years ago.
It is in the transport and warehousing sector that the increase in the number of defaults is the fastest, at 17.6%. This sector was marked by a very large number of business creations during the pandemic in delivery services. Behind the transport and warehousing sector, construction follows with a 16.7% rise in failures, ahead of information and communication with 11.6%.
VSEs particularly affected
Conversely, declarations of cessation of payment continue to fall for accommodation and catering, with a fall of around 8.8%. Very small businesses (TPE), with less than 11 employees, are particularly affected by this marked upturn in insolvencies, with an increase of 23.7% over one year, while large SMEs with 50 to 249 employees are experiencing a drop in defects of the same order of magnitude (-23.4%). And only 23 bankruptcies of medium-sized companies (ETI) and large groups were notified, a drop of 55.8%.
For its part, the firm Altares published a study on Monday showing a 34.6% increase in business failures over one year in the first quarter, with a different methodology, including in particular the safeguard procedures excluded by the Bank. of France, which only takes into account situations of cessation of payment, namely liquidations and legal proceedings.