The October election is fast approaching and campaigning by all parties is underway. As policies and promises continue to be released, economic policies are likely to be front and centre for many voters. Not all parties have released their policies detailing how they plan to guide our economy through the post lockdown period, any tax policy changes they would like to see, and how they plan to pay New Zealand’s lockdown debt.
For some, the wage subsidy extension they received will have come to an end in August 2020. For other businesses who did not see a 40% downturn in their income following the end of the first lockdown period, the second lockdown period meant that they have now qualified for the wage subsidy extension. For these businesses, the wage subsidy extension will run out around the start of the Christmas trading period.
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Company Insolvencies – Liquidations, Receiverships, and Voluntary Administrations
There were 147 new insolvency appointments in August 2020, which brings the total appointments for 2020 to 1102. Insolvency appointments in August 2020 are comparable to August 2019 levels (149) but the year to date figure is still down on both 2019 (1,290) and 2018 (1,492). There was an uptake in appointments in the last week of August 2020, which looks to be a result of non-licensed insolvency practitioners taking a number of appointments before the 1 September 2020 licensing requirements came into effect.
In August 2020, there were 12 winding up applications advertised, none of which were brought by the IRD. In 2020, only April had fewer applications advertised. In both these months, the country was in a Level 3 or 4 lockdown for some of it.
Of the winding up application advertised in 2020 (152), 92 of those applications (roughly 61%) have resulted in liquidators and/or receivers being appointed. Some of the applications advertised will still be before the High Court awaiting resolution. Around 70% of the applications advertised in January and February resulted in liquidators or receivers being appointed.
Personal Insolvencies - Bankruptcy
Personal insolvencies in August 2020 were at 95 (July 2020 was 81), driven largely by bankruptcies and Debt Repayment Orders. The No Asset Procedures figures remained consistent with earlier months.
All types of personal insolvencies in the year to date (642) continue to be down on the levels seen in 2018 (1,014) and 2019 (808).
Outlook
We have compared corporate and personal insolvency appointments since 2018. The graph shows that, the appointments followed roughly the same pattern and spiked and dropped at roughly the same times, with neither being a lagging or leading indicator of the other.
Earlier this year, MBIE predicted that personal insolvency appointments in the final quarter of 2020 would rise to as high as 3,200, which would be a quadrupling in appointments when compared to the same quarter in 2019. While appointments in the first quarter of 2020 were higher than 2019, this year has seen lower personal insolvency appointment numbers since April 2020 when compared to last year. While MBIE has advised that revised projections will be released in October 2020.
In the last quarter of 2019, there were 464 corporate insolvency appointments. If corporate insolvency appointments continue to follow the same patterns as personal insolvency appointments, on MBIE’s current predictions, the last quarter of 2020 could see a significant number of companies fail in the lead up to Christmas. Only time will tell whether the government measures that have been implemented to save businesses has been enough to keep corporate insolvency numbers from growing exponentially.