Winding Up Applications
February applications were down on January but still above what we saw in 2024. Historically February would be a bumper month as the winding up notices that couldn’t be processed in January would spill into February. Regardless it was still a strong showing for the month and is setting the tone for what we expect to see in the rest of the year.
IRD made up 78 of the 118 appointments for the month and continued applying the pressure to derelict debtors.
The IRD has continued with its 23-month streak of having more applications than all other creditors. The last time they made less applications was back in March 2023. I have also included the trend line this month to emphasise the upward trend over the last 5 years.
Personal Receiverships
February posted similar figures to those seen in January 2025, as seen below we remain above those seen the last 6 years. Taking a bit of a leap if this monthly increase continues for the rest of the year we will be up in the 80’s and potentially double what was seen last year and well above earlier years.
Company Insolvencies – Liquidations, Receiverships, and Voluntary Administrations
After only a slight lift in January, February 2025 took off to new February highs. The driver behind this was a huge month for court appointments, this was to be expected given the bump in winding up applications seen last month all fell due in February.
So where did the work go? The practitioners that regularly take work each month generally all took between 15 – 20 appointments in the month.
Then there was the Official Assignee who took 82 appointments for the month, the bulk of this work coming from IRD winding up applications, the most they took last year in a month was 73. Regardless of who takes this work 82 appointments in a month is a massive amount of liquidations that need to be managed and administered, fortunately for the OA as you can see below the personal insolvency figures remain low so they have spare resources to allocate to liquidation work for the moment.
Year to date insolvency figures line up with those seen after the GFC but remain well behind what was seen in 2009.
Solvent liquidations remained down on the average (13%), while insolvent shareholder appointments in February were just down on their average of 51%, receiverships were similar to their long term average. The big increased as outlined above was from court liquidations making up 41% while the average is normally around 26%.
Personal Insolvencies – Bankruptcy, No Asset Procedure and Debt Repayment Orders.
Personal insolvency appointment figures for Bankruptcy, NAP and DRO while not the lowest January on record have remained low.
I have previously predicted that we will see a lift in personal insolvency in the first quarter of 2025, we are not there yet but I may also be pushing that prediction to a later part of the year.
Where to from here?
For 2025 the expectation is that there will be further business failures across all sectors and business sizes as the recovery continues and the IRD keeps pressure on businesses with arrears to be recovered
There will be continued busy times for insolvency practitioners for the next 2-3 years as we deal with the tail from the latest recession.
If you want to have a chat about any points raised or an issue you may have you can call on 0800 30 30 34 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.