In the first quarter of the current year there were noticeably few company bankruptcies in Austria. According to Dun & Bradstreet, 325 companies have filed for bankruptcy. In a direct comparison with the same period of the previous year, this corresponds to a decrease of 41 percent. However, the credit agency does not attribute this to a good economic situation.

On the contrary: Dun & Bradstreet is of the opinion that many companies have not yet had to go to the bankruptcy judge simply because of grants and government aid. The rules for filing for insolvency are currently much softened, so that the 60-day period does not apply without consequences.

“But many bankruptcies were only postponed into the future, but by no means canceled. This applies in particular to the “zombie” companies that should have given up in normal business, but are now artificially kept alive through subsidies and special regulations. In absolute numbers, according to the analysis by Dun & Bradstreet, the highest number of bankruptcies occurred in Vienna (145 cases), followed by Lower Austria (53 cases), Styria (37 cases) and Upper Austria (33 cases) ”, says Dun & Bradstreet.

Noticeably few bankruptcies in the travel industry

In the first quarter of 2021, the tourism-relevant areas “Gastronomy and Hotel Industry” and “Transport and Travel” had significantly fewer bankruptcies. The industries mentioned have been particularly hard hit by the corona pandemic, as the basis for business has almost completely collapsed. Travel agencies and tour operators recorded negative sales in the previous year, which resulted from the fact that the amount of the reimbursements exceeded the total of the new orders. In the first quarter of 2021, new business was also weak, especially since official closings had been ordered, at least for stationary.

Restaurants and hotels were largely closed in the first quarter of 2021. There were exceptions in Vorarlberg, but many innkeepers decided to keep their restaurants closed. It is expected that in the travel and tourism industry as well as in the catering trade in the course of 2021 - after the subsidies expire and the insolvency rules come back into force - a wave of bankruptcies could come.

Bankruptcies in the first quarter of 2021 by industry: