Switzerland bankruptcies climbed in 2016

Corporate bankruptcies are on the increase in Switzerland in 2016 which covered 6504 companies, 6.7% more than last year. According to figures released today by the Society of Economic Information Creditreform, the major cause is represented by insolvencies (4648, + 2.9%), while the closures for gaps in the organization (+ 18% in 1856) recorded the largest increase .

Creditreform assumes that the latter figure is due to increased activity of some cantonal offices of the Commercial Register. Between 2013 and 2015 the number of closures ordered by the authorities were in fact dropped.

Private bankruptcies have remained almost perfectly stable (+ 0.1% in 7436). It also confirms the trend observed in previous years, which saw a drop in living persons failures (-6% in 1474) compared to an increase of inheritance rejected (+ 1.8% in 5962).

Overall bankruptcies were 13'940, an increase of 3.1% compared to 2015, while startups rose by 0.7% to 41'352, still exceeding the critical threshold of 40,000.

Radiation was 28'223, down 0.4%. The net growth of companies amounted to 13'129 (+ 3.3%): this is a record value, second only to 15'607 in 2008 thanks to the very low number of companies canceled. Creditreform has not published data for each canton.