The number of insolvent businesses being liquidated rather than restructured has increased by 10% in the last year, with rising interest rates and Brexit disruption fuelling the surge, according to analysis by Moore Stephens
The owners of high street restaurant chain Giraffe and Ed’s Easy Diner, Boparan Restaurant Group (BRG), is to close a third of its restaurants around the country as part of a company voluntary agreement
MPs have challenged Grant Thornton, the administrators to failed pay-day loan company Wonga, about how they plan to support vulnerable customers who had complaints open with the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) at the time of the lender's collapse, and who they say have no other route to redress and have been ‘cast aside’
The government has announced the first public consultation on plans to make HMRC a secondary preferential creditor for certain tax debts paid by employees and customers on the insolvency of a business, which have been branded a ‘cash grab’ by R3, the insolvency and restructuring trade body
Lee Lockwood, director at Begbies Traynor, and Ray Claughton, director at Rushtons, have been appointed joint administrators of bespoke furniture maker YTM Group, based in Castleford, which has ceased trading with the loss of over 100 jobs
BDO business restructuring partners Graham Newton, Tony Nygate and James Stephen have been appointed as joint administrators over British Midland Regional Ltd, the East Midlands-based airline which operated as Flybmi, and ceased operations at the weekend with all flights cancelled and the loss of around 400 jobs
Last year ended on a challenging note for many businesses, with the total number of companies in England and Wales entering into administration during the fourth quarter on the increase, according to analysis by KPMG
Irish private equity firm Causeway Capital Partners has bought troubled bakery chain Patisserie Valerie, which collapsed into administration earlier this year following on from the earlier discovery of a £40m accounting fraud
Andrew Johnson and Chad Griffin, senior managing directors of FTI Consulting, have been appointed as joint administrators of energy consultancy Utilitywise (UTW), which has failed to find a buyer after reporting difficulties in refinancing earlier this year and has now ceased trading, putting around 1,000 jobs at risk
Investors in the company that owns Patisserie Valerie are looking at launching legal action over the collapse of the cafe chain, highlighting the dilemma facing investors in cases of insolvency and business failure. Mark Fletcher, senior associate and Thomas Bond, associate at Russell-Cooke consider the legal options
Blair Nimmo, partner, and Geoff Jacobs, director, of KPMG have been appointed as joint administrators of Dundee-based specialist building contractor McGill & Co Ltd, which has collapsed with the loss of over 300 jobs
Embattled Interserve, a major outsourcing supplier to the government, is facing shareholder challenge as it attempts to put in place a rescue deal to handle its £600m of debt via a debt for equity swap with its lenders which would see other shareholdings very significantly diluted
The number of businesses in ‘significant’ financial distress rose by 15,000 in the last quarter of 2018 and now stands at 481,000, while the proportion whose distress level is ‘critical’ was 25% higher than the same quarter of the previous year, according to data from Begbies Traynor
While company insolvency rates dipped in the final quarter of last year, the total number of company insolvencies increased in 2018 to 16,090, the highest level since 2014, figures from the Insolvency Service show
