The corona crisis could drive companies into bankruptcy in large numbers – also in Mainfranken. It is not yet so. Experts say when the worst is to be expected.
The brakes on the economy due to the corona pandemic have not yet exploded the number of corporate failures in Germany. The situation is similar in Mainfranken. But experts assume that the big end will come in late summer.
According to preliminary data from the Federal Statistical Office, the number of regular insolvency proceedings opened in March 2020 increased by 1.6 percent compared to the same month in the previous year. In April, on the other hand, the number of proceedings opened dropped significantly by 13.4 percent, the Wiesbaden authorities said on Monday.
How the bankruptcy situation in Mainfranken is
As the local court in Würzburg announced on request on Monday, 54 companies filed for bankruptcy in February, March and April, 28 fewer than in the same period last year. The numbers refer to the city of Würzburg and the districts of Würzburg, Kitzingen and Main-Spessart.
The situation in the rest of Main Franconia is hardly different. The district court of Schweinfurt registered 27 commercial insolvency applications in February, March and April. A year ago there were 36. According to court spokeswoman Kerstin Leitsch, the corona crisis is not making waves in this regard – not yet.
Why there is no bankruptcy wave yet
The judge Jürgen Reiher from the district court in Würzburg has a similar view. The decisive factor for companies is that due to the corona crisis, the obligation to file for bankruptcy has been suspended within three weeks until the end of September. According to the Federal Ministry of Justice, this is to prevent companies from going bankrupt only because their application for liquidity assistance could not be processed in time.
The head of the collection and consulting company Creditreform in Würzburg, Raymond Polyak, does not expect the situation to worsen until a few months from now. As he said in an interview with this editorial recently, the region’s corporate bankruptcies are likely to see “an extreme surge this fall” – particularly in the hospitality, hotel and retail sectors.
The Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden interprets the situation in the country in a similar way. “The economic crisis caused by the corona pandemic and the measures to contain it are not reflected in an increase in the number of insolvency proceedings opened in March and April,” it said on Monday. The statisticians do not expect that the official figures, which the Federal Office will publish about two months later, will differ significantly from the preliminary figures.
With information from dpa
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