Rotterdam, March 11, 2022 - Last February, 156 companies went bankrupt in the Netherlands. This is evident from figures presented today by business data expert Altares Dun & Bradstreet. These 156 bankruptcies are 28 more than in January, when 128 companies went bankrupt. In February 2021 the number was also significantly lower. At that time, 129 companies went bankrupt.
Altares Dun & Bradstreet analyzes the number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands every month. The company has insight into hundreds of millions of anonymized company records from more than 30,000 sources, which enables Altares Dun & Bradstreet to make reliable statements about the number of active companies in a country.
Trade and construction
The vast majority of bankruptcies in the Netherlands are in the trade and construction sectors. Trade saw the most bankruptcies in February (28) and this sector also led the way in January (22). Construction follows closely, with 27 bankruptcies in February and 18 in January. This is not surprising: these sectors also have the most enterprises. There is also a slight increase in the number of bankruptcies in the healthcare sector. In the first two months of 2022, there were 24, while in the whole of 2021, only 72 companies in total stopped.
For other sectors, there was better news. No energy companies went out of business in January and February, while six such companies stopped in December 2021. In the information and communications sector, three companies went out of business. That's as many as in June 2021, and the fewest since February 2021. No other sector has to go back that far in time to find comparable figures.
Stagnant trend
Even though the numbers were up in February, Altares Dun & Bradstreet sees a downward trend. David Verheecke, Managing Director Benelux at Altares Dun & Bradstreet at the company: "If we list the number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands since January 2019, we see that the downward trend that started in 2019 is stagnating. Even though we saw a slight increase in February: in February 2020, 309 companies went bankrupt. That does put things in perspective." A forecast for March cannot be made, he says. "Last year March was, after November, the month with the most bankruptcies. But that doesn't guarantee anything about this year's number."