German insolvencies up 6.2 percent in April 2008

Insolvencies of enterprises and other debtors unexpectedly spiked higher in April 2008 compared to a year ago. Some of this increase has been attributed to early Easter holidays. The January to April period registered a marked decrease (-8.6%) in insolvencies compared to a year ago. Nevertheless this spike in insolvencies is worrisome and requires close monitoring in the coming months.

From the Federal Statitical Office:
As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), in April 2008, German insolvency courts reported 14,160 insolvencies: 2,781 of them referred to enterprises and 11,379 to other debtors. Without the results of Nordrhein-Westfalen the total number of insolvencies increased 6.2% compared with April 2007, enterprise insolvencies increased 9.2% and insolvencies of other debtors increased 5.7%. Since the number of insolvencies have tended to decline recently, the increase in April 2008 compared to April 2007 might be attributed to the fact that Easter holidays in 2007 fell in April whereas in 2008 they were in March, and thus the courts in April 2008 could deal with markedly more insolvency requests than in the corresponding month of the previous year.

From January to April 2008, 52,441 insolvencies (–8.6%) were registered, 9,928 of which were enterprise insolvencies (–7.5%). Altogether the courts registered 32,904 consumer insolvencies, that were 9.4% less than in the period from January to April 2007. The change rates refer to computations without Nordrhein-Westfalen.

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source: 6.2% more insolvencies in April 2008
Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/EN/press/pr/2008/07/PE08__248__52411,templateId=renderPrint.psml