Since the start of 2024, nearly 66,000 companies in France have gone into bankruptcy, a number that is clearly increasing. Among them, VSEs and SMEs are particularly vulnerable due to rising costs and payment delays.
66 000 : this is the number of companies placed in default” in France since the start of 2024, according to the specialist firm Altars. These failures include a certain number of procedures which intervene for companies in poor health: safeguard measures, recovery measures or even judicial liquidation. If they constitute a good indicator of the entrepreneurial health of a State, in France, their number is worrying. Productivity has declined while energy costs have steadily increased since 2022. end of the tariff shieldas announced by the government, can hardly help reverse the situation. In addition, wage costs remain very high while unemployment continues to increase.
The end of the perfusion?
If the exceptional measures put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic allowed businesses to survive, they also had the effect of transmitting the “virus of failure ». 804,000 companies were thus able to benefit from a loan guaranteed by the State (PGE); a loan that must now be repaid even though businesses are suffering from a lack of cash flow. This situation leads to in fact an increase in failures. Added to this is the end of aid such as partial unemployment and the solidarity fund. These measures cost nearly 145 billion eurosan interventionism that the State can no longer afford today.
VSE-SMEs particularly concerned
From 2022, the economic parachute began to break up. After recording a historically low number of failures in 2020 (28,000 companies concerned), very small businesses (VSEs) are experiencing significant economic difficulties today. Thus, we record 40,000 failures from 2022. If VSEs are, generally speaking, more impacted by crises due to their fragility, they are now joined by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The reason for this is the increase in the costs of energy and raw materials in all sectors led to an increase in production costs, which in turn was passed on to prices. Demand, also impacted by inflation, has not followed. Office Altars indicates that business failure procedures concerning SMEs with more than 50 employees have increased by 47% in the third quarter of 2024. On the other hand, the risk of bankruptcy of large companies induces a domino effect that can lead many suppliers into a similar state of affairs. This situation has consequences for employment, in a context where there are already fears of a significant increase in corporate taxes.
Failure to pay, France in difficulty
In this already unfavorable business climate, Altars also points to an increase in late payments. In this area, France is not a good student. In the first semester, 85% of companies have been exposed to this issue, thus displaying a average delay of 51 days compared to 32 in Germany. Only one in two French companies make payments on time, which further burdens companies’ cash flow while the situation is already under pressure. The Payment Deadlines Observatory estimated that 15 billion euros the lack of cash flow for SMEs in 2022 due to these delays. A significant risk since delays exceeding the 30-day threshold increase the probability of failure of the supplier. 25% to 40%explains Thierry Millon, director of studies atAltars. The credit insurer Coface also indicates that a quarter of business failures tricolors would be due to unpaid debts. However, France is not the only one to suffer this crisis. THE business failures across the world have in fact increased by 11% in 2024 according to Alliance Trade.
Grégoire MELIN
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