In the first quarter, 9,972 companies were the subject of a failure procedure. An increasing number of 35% compared to the same period of the previous year.
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After two years of flat calm, the activity is gradually returning to normal in the commercial courts. In the first quarter 2022, according to the figures of the Altare Cabinet published on Monday, April 11, 9,972 companies have been the subject of a failure procedure. A figure up 35% compared to the same period last year, but still significantly lower than the tilt observed in 2018 and 2019, where there were approximately 14,000 defects over the first three months of the ‘year. In total, these two years had totaled 107,000 collective procedures, against just under 61,000 over the 2020s and 2021. “We are less than half of the level of pre-crisis activity,” confirms Frédéric Abitbol, President of the National Council of Judicial Administrators and Judicial Officers (CNAJMJ).
The wave of bankruptcies, so dreaded at the beginning of the CVIV-19 crisis, was contained by the policy of the “whatever it costs”, which helped support companies facing a fall, sometimes total , of their activity. This support accounted for a total of 240 billion euros in the form of loans – including 145 billion euros of state-guaranteed loans to 700,000 companies – and grants.
The end of the aid and the beginning of the repayment of the loans guaranteed by the State explain that the number of failures returns to the rise. These bankruptcies affect mostly young companies, under five years old. Created shortly before the health crisis, they “did not have time to meet their market, their activity did not really take off,” explains Thierry Millon, Director of Altare Studies. They are particularly many of the general food businesses, small grocery stores or proximity supermarkets that have not “held”: the defects in this sector of activity are three times more numerous in the first quarter 2022 than in the previous quarters.
Restoration and very small companies
Bankruptcies doubled in one year in the traditional catering sector, which may not have seen returning customers as numerous. They also increase in services to individuals, hairdressers and beauty institutes. Regardless of very small businesses, the impact in terms of jobs remains relatively low. “The records we have treated on the beginning of the year represent a total of 27,000 jobs, and overall the judicial proceedings make it possible to save two-thirds”, recalls M e abitbol.
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