Company closures
Company death at the highest level since 2011
Successfully build a company and simply make up the light at the end of working life and handle the company? A dark scenario that is unfortunately often a reality.
Missing successors and other problems: More and more companies in Germany are throwing the towel. The number of corporate closures last year was 196,100 – that was 16 percent more than 2023, as the Creditreform information agency and the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) announced. The number of closures had not been so high since 2011 – at that time the consequences of the financial crisis caused brake traces in Germany’s economy.
“The number of closures is alarming in all economic sectors,” says Creditreform economic researcher Patrik-Ludwig Hantzsch. “Especially the industrial companies suffer from the high energy costs in production, while competitive pressure increases by foreign providers.”
In the energy -intensive economic sectors, 1,050 operating closures were counted and thus 26 percent more than 2023. In the area of ”IT, product development, environmental technology and diagnostics”, the number of closures increased by about a quarter. ZEW researcher Sandra Gottschalk points out that this economic area should actually grow because it is a future industry.
But because of a serious shortage of skilled workers, companies competed for scarce resources. “This means that enough orders cannot be accepted to work economically.” The number of closures was also unusually high in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry.
More and more larger companies are affected
The closures are often about small owner -managed companies, but in recent years there have been more and more larger companies.
Example: A hotel hires the company. It is getting old and has an investment backlog, but it is in a good location. A real estate company buys the property, tears down the building and builds new apartments on the property. These are sold to private individuals.
Corporation closure means not only bankruptcy, but also more or less voluntary business tasks – for example if a company owner does not find a successor and finally wants to retire. There are also cases in which a company is still profitable, but the long -term perspective. In addition, there are deaths or illnesses, which makes it impossible to continue business.
The Federal Statistical Office also spoke out on the subject in February. According to the statistics, more companies were founded in Germany last year than abandoned. However, this was only about larger or relatively important companies.
dpa
Source: Stern
