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5,401 companies are affected, which corresponds to 15 company bankruptcies per day and as many cases as last ten years ago. It was said that the provisional liabilities had also risen massively, not least because of the bankruptcy of Signa Holding GmbH. Specifically, according to estimates from KSV1870, provisional liabilities increased by 286 percent to around 8.53 billion euros. This development can be traced back to the largest company bankruptcy in Austrian economic history to date – the insolvency of Signa Holding. There are around 5 billion euros in liabilities here. But even without Signa Holding, the estimated liabilities of EUR 3.26 billion would be around half above the previous year’s level, according to the credit protection association.
“This shows that the insolvencies in Austria are no longer so small-scale, but that they are increasing in number,” said Karl-Heinz Götze, head of insolvency at KSV1870, when presenting the figures in Vienna. The number of affected employees also increased by 45 percent to 22,500 – this is where the Kika/Leiner bankruptcy played a role, says Götze. There was also an increase in creditors by 41 percent to around 45,000.
“The current situation is that we have high numbers of insolvencies, but it is not alarming,” Götze continued. Twenty years ago the insolvency rate was around two percent; today it is 1.2 percent, he made the comparison. “The negative thing is that we still have far too many insolvencies that have not been opened,” he said, concerned about an increase of eight percent compared to the previous year to around 2,000 unopened proceedings. However, Götze viewed an increase of 16 percent in the number of insolvencies opened to 3,378 proceedings as “good news”.
Problem child retail
According to KSV1870, trade, the construction industry and the accommodation and catering sector are particularly affected by the bankruptcies. According to calculations by KSV1870, trade including maintenance and repair of motor vehicles exceeded the thousand mark for the first time in years with exactly 1003 bankruptcies (plus 17 percent); Retail is a particular problem child here. The credit protectors see the main reasons for this as the high energy costs, the catch-up effects from pandemic times that often do not occur and the currently declining purchasing power of private individuals.
The increase in bankruptcies in the construction industry by 21 percent to 936 cases is due not least to the high construction costs and sharply increased interest rates, it said. Above all, acute staff shortages and changed consumer behavior caused an increase in the number of bankruptcies in the accommodation and catering sector by 19 percent to 709 cases.
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For the CEO of KSV1870 Holding AG, Ricardo-José Vybiral, the Austrian economy is at a “crossroads”. Only 49 percent of the companies surveyed told the credit protectors that they were in a very good or good business situation. The number 1 issue is the “cost dilemma,” explained Vybiral, with a view to the high wage and energy costs. Added to this are staff shortages and political instability. The CEO also sees the need for politicians to get the domestic economy out of “stuttering mode”.
The strongest increases in the number of bankruptcies were recorded in Burgenland (+26 percent), Carinthia (+23 percent) and Vorarlberg (+21 percent). This was followed by Styria (+17 percent), Vienna (+13 percent), Upper Austria (+12 percent), Lower Austria (+10 percent), Salzburg (+7 percent) and Tyrol (+5 percent).
Looking into the future, the credit protectors are no more positive. They expect between 5,800 and 6,000 company bankruptcies in the coming year.
Personal bankruptcies increased by 9.5 percent
According to estimates, private bankruptcies increased by 9.5 percent this year compared to the previous year, and 8,956 regulatory proceedings were opened. However, the preliminary level of debt was one percent lower with preliminary liabilities amounting to 895 million euros. This means that the average amount of debt fell by 11,000 euros to 100,000 euros per debtor.
According to the calculations, the increase was particularly high in Vorarlberg (+36.2 percent). Carinthia (+17.9 percent), Burgenland (+14.5 percent), Salzburg (+12.4 percent), Upper Austria (+11.9 percent), Vienna (+10.6 percent), Tyrol ( +5.6 percent) and Lower Austria (+2.6 percent). Only in Styria was there a slight decrease of 0.1 percent.
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