57 firms insolvent

Press, 3 February 1979, Page 1

57 firms insolvent

Insolvency liquidated 57 Christchurch companies last year, the highest number for at lest five years. The Supre.me Court ordered 37 of the companies wound up, while the others closed voluntarily as a result of creditors’ petitions. Forty-nine companies were put in receivership, an increase of nine on the 1977 figure, while 58 persons were adjudicated bankrupt, the same number as in 1977.

The provisional figures were released by the Official Assignee (Mr I. A. Hansen) yesterday. Mr Hansen said that a significant feature was the continuation of the trend toward creditors’ wind-ings-up. Mr Hansen said that some years ago about 90 per cent of the bankruptcies arose from debtors’ petitions to the court, but in 1977 10 of the 58 bankruptcies resulted from creditors’ petitions and

last year 17 of the 58 bankruptcies resulted from creditors’ petitions. Mr Hansen said that the trend was reflected in the number of files opened in the court by creditors trying to extract debts from debtors. Last year there were 207 files opened, compared with 173 in 1977. Of the 207 files opened, 149 never reached bankruptcy adjudication, generally because the debtor paid up.