The head of Credit Insurance specialists, Trade Credit Brokers has warned that market intelligence on several sectors could spell out more catastrophic failure for a variety of Northern Ireland companies.
Nigel Birney, Head of Trade Credit and Political Risks, Trade Credit Brokers, has said that the unwelcome news won’t stop at McMullen Facades Ltd, Carillion, Williams Industrial Services, and Schlumberger. He expects more could follow, particularly in the construction and retail sectors.
As a specialist credit insurer, Trade Credit Brokers keeps a watching brief on companies and their creditworthiness and are often the first armed with the market intelligence that can signal that an organisation is in trouble.
This comes at the time when the Association of British Insurers have claimed in recent weeks that insolvency rates have hit their highest level since 2013, stating that there were 300 insolvencies a week in 2017 in the UK.
Nigel Birney, Head of Trade Credit and Political Risks, Trade Credit Brokers commented:
“The market intelligence that we are seeing shows that there are many companies out there who are on the brink of failure and are very exposed particularly in the construction and retails sectors.”
“Underwriters are telling us that they are facing a big challenge not to withdraw their support in some sectors, which indicates that there will be more insolvencies in the early part of this year.”
“The unfortunate example of the likes of McMullen Facades Ltd, Carillion, Williams Industrial Services, and Schlumberger and the potentially catastrophic impact that it will most likely have on their supply chains, shows just how exposed these businesses were without appropriate credit insurance cover in place.”
“This is a big lesson to many businesses out there who think that they could never be affected by a situation like this. These very public examples should encourage those without cover, that financial protection against an unforeseen and potentially catastrophic impact of a bad debt is vital in these challenging times, for many businesses, as they try to manage their credit risk ”.
“We encourage anyone who wants to see out any credit risk pressures that they might be under to make sure that they speak with a specialist credit insurance intermediary before it’s too late.”