After the Covid-19 waves, “no wave of bankruptcies to come”.

At least, “at this stage”, according to the Banque de France.

The latter published, on Wednesday, the provisional figures for business failures over the last 12 months, they are up 6.3%.

An increase 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 .

The number of declarations of insolvency therefore remains 45% lower than in March 2019.

Return to a more normal situation at the end of the pandemic

The resumption of insolvencies is nevertheless accelerating, the increase for February having been only 2.9%, according to final figures published by the Banque de France.

At just under 30,000 over 12 months in March, the number of failures is still 36.6% lower than that recorded two years earlier.

At the Ministry of the Economy, it is explained that this is a return to a more normal situation at the end of the pandemic.

“It is important not to freeze an economy.

An economy grows as soon as there is breathing space in the business fabric,” according to an adviser.

VSEs with less than 11 employees are the most affected by failures

It is in the transport and warehousing sector that the increase in the number of insolvencies was the fastest, at 17.6%, details the Banque de France.

This sector was marked by a very large number of business creations during the pandemic in delivery services.

Construction follows with a 16.7% increase in failures, ahead of information and communication with 11.6%.

Conversely, declarations of insolvency continued to fall for accommodation and catering (-8.8%).

By company size, it is the very small (TPE), with fewer than 11 employees, which are experiencing a marked recovery in insolvencies, up 23.7% over one year, while large SMEs with 50 to 249 employees experienced a drop in payment defaults 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%.

Altares, for its part, published a study on Monday showing a 34.6% increase in business failures over one year in the first quarter, with a different methodology, which notably takes into account the safeguard procedures excluded by the Bank. of France, which only takes into account situations of cessation of payment, i.e. liquidations and legal proceedings.

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  • Economy

  • Business

  • Bankruptcy

  • SME