If there was a cliff for the insolvency figures to jump off it would be called “Public Holidays” and they have effects across the board this month, but people taking 10 days in a row off will do that. April felt suspiciously like Christmas where you have a month’s work to do in half the time, so naturally some things get put off to next month.

Coupled with the shorter month we also had global factors playing havoc with the economy and adding to the uncertainty for businesses, a number have started to take the wait and see approach to see what washes out rather than taking action to deal with problems they are facing.

Winding Up Applications

April saw a further drop in appointments for the year, but we remain slightly above the prior year to date figures. Uncertainty and a short month dropping the figures back to 2023 levels.

For the first time this year we have come in under triple figures. I expect we will climb back up next month and will likely see a bounce back for the rest of the year. IRD continues to apply pressure and the their remains a lot of distress in the economy while consumers have not opened their wallets just yet.

IRD made up 47 of the 73 applications for the month, with non IRD applications cut in half when compared to the previous month. IRD continue to be well above the past 5 years cumulative total, so it is safe to assume they are continuing to apply pressure to derelict debtors, this is supported by the coms they are putting out on their increased compliance and recovery work in 2025.

The IRD has continued their 25-month streak of having more applications than all other creditors.

Personal Receiverships

April saw 5 more appointments putting up over double that stats seen in previous years to April figures. As more companies continue to default on their lending personal security agreements are being called up, we believe this will continue to track towards exceeding 2024 figures.

Company Insolvencies – Liquidations, Receiverships, and Voluntary Administrations

What did April look like? It mirrored the April 2024 figures. What was this driven by? Public Holidays leaving less actual working days and a fear bit of uncertainty in the economy (some global and some local) helping stakeholders avoid the difficult decisions.

Year to date insolvency figures are just behind those seen in and around 2013 – 2015 and remain slightly above those seen in 2024.

There was a large drop in court appointed liquidations in April with only 28 in the month, well down from February’s 114 and March’s 85. This in turn made the insolvency shareholder liquidation portion (above) appear a lot larger for the month. Another effect of a lot of Public Holidays in the month is the courts not being open, unsurprisingly it is difficult to have court appointed liquidations with the court is closed.

Personal Insolvencies – Bankruptcy, No Asset Procedure and Debt Repayment Orders

 Personal insolvency appointment figures for Bankruptcy, NAP and DRO remain low as seen above. You will note that while IRD has continued to push corporate winding ups, this has not yet been felt in the personal insolvency space with a rise in court appointed bankruptcies.

Where to from here?

While figures have been dropping in the last few months we are not out of the woods yet and will expect to see a turnaround towards the middle of the year along with returning to higher insolvency levels.

If you want to have a chat about any points raised or an issue you may have you can call on 0800 30 30 34 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Winding Up Applications

Yet another month where we saw a drop in appointments when compared to the prior month, but we remain above the prior year March figures. Traditionally we would see a drop in March before we begin the climb to the mid-year highs, coupled with the end of financial year keeping creditors distracted with other matters.

The winding up notices advertised still present a strong showing for the month, with triple digits for each month in the first quarter of 2025. It suggests we will continue to see this increased level of creditor activity for the rest of the year.

While the appointments since January have been decreasing, as a cumulative total we remain above the totals in the last 5 years and have already exceeded the total yearly winding up applications seen in 2020. At our current rate I expect we will exceed the yearly total winding up applications in 2021 and 2022 by the end of the 2nd quarter for 2025.

IRD made up 53 of the 104 applications for the month and have reverted to their long-term average of 51% of the total applications. They remain well above the past 5 years cumulative total for the first quarter, so it is safe to assume they are continuing to apply pressure to derelict debtors, this is supported by the coms they are putting out on their increased compliance and recovery work in 2025.

The IRD has only just managed to continue their 24-month streak of having more applications than all other creditors making up 53 vs 51 applications for the month. We are not expecting the drop off since January to continue but rather to stabilise and begin to climb into the 2nd quarter of the year.

Personal Receiverships

A slower March with only two personal receivership appointments in the month, looking back on the last six years however the month of March does not normally see many appointments. As you can see below the total appointment for the first quarter are above the yearly totals seen in 2019, 2021 and 2022. We continue to track towards exceeding 2024 appointments by 25%+.

Company Insolvencies – Liquidations, Receiverships, and Voluntary Administrations

The traditional high seen in March did not quite eventuate as we saw a slower month for the end of the financial year. What was this driven by? Digging into the figures we normally see a spike in solvent liquidations at the end of the financial year, in 2025 this did not eventuate. This has been a reoccurring trend for the last few months with solvent liquidations taking a dip, likely driven by the recession and there being less cashed up businesses looking to wind themselves down and distribute funds back to shareholders.

Year to date insolvency figures line up with those seen in and around 2013 – 2015 and remain above those seen in 2024.

As mentioned above solvent liquidations remained down on the average, 8% in 2025 vs 13% for the long-term average. Comparing 2025 to the average for past March figures the 8% for the month is well below the normal March solvent level of 17%.

There was a lift in insolvent shareholder appointments at 53% compared to their average of 51%. Once again, the bigger increase was from court liquidations making up 31% while the average is normally around 26%, this was driven by the large number of winding up application being pushed through the courts in Jan and Feb 2025.

Personal Insolvencies – Bankruptcy, No Asset Procedure and Debt Repayment Orders.

Personal insolvency appointment figures for Bankruptcy, NAP and DRO remain subdued with a total for the month of 112 and come in only slightly above 2022 (89), 2023 (106) & 2024 (99).

Cumulatively January and February’s total is 179, only slightly above 2022 (157), 2023 (157) and 2024 (154). While businesses continue to struggle this is not yet showing up in the personal insolvency figures.

Where to from here?

With the first quarter behind us 2025 looks like there will be further businesses failures across all sectors and business sizes, particularly with the global uncertainty and the IRD keeping pressure on businesses.

There will be continued busy times for insolvency practitioners for the next 2-3 years as we deal with the tail from the latest recession.

If you want to have a chat about any points raised or an issue you may have you can call on 0800 30 30 34 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Winding Up Applications
 

February applications were down on January but still above what we saw in 2024. Historically February would be a bumper month as the winding up notices that couldn’t be processed in January would spill into February. Regardless it was still a strong showing for the month and is setting the tone for what we expect to see in the rest of the year.

IRD made up 78 of the 118 appointments for the month and continued applying the pressure to derelict debtors.

The IRD has continued with its 23-month streak of having more applications than all other creditors. The last time they made less applications was back in March 2023. I have also included the trend line this month to emphasise the upward trend over the last 5 years.

Personal Receiverships

February posted similar figures to those seen in January 2025, as seen below we remain above those seen the last 6 years. Taking a bit of a leap if this monthly increase continues for the rest of the year we will be up in the 80’s and potentially double what was seen last year and well above earlier years.

Company Insolvencies – Liquidations, Receiverships, and Voluntary Administrations

After only a slight lift in January, February 2025 took off to new February highs. The driver behind this was a huge month for court appointments, this was to be expected given the bump in winding up applications seen last month all fell due in February.

So where did the work go? The practitioners that regularly take work each month generally all took between 15 – 20 appointments in the month.

Then there was the Official Assignee who took 82 appointments for the month, the bulk of this work coming from IRD winding up applications, the most they took last year in a month was 73. Regardless of who takes this work 82 appointments in a month is a massive amount of liquidations that need to be managed and administered, fortunately for the OA as you can see below the personal insolvency figures remain low so they have spare resources to allocate to liquidation work for the moment.

Year to date insolvency figures line up with those seen after the GFC but remain well behind what was seen in 2009.

Solvent liquidations remained down on the average (13%), while insolvent shareholder appointments in February were just down on their average of 51%, receiverships were similar to their long term average. The big increased as outlined above was from court liquidations making up 41% while the average is normally around 26%.

Personal Insolvencies – Bankruptcy, No Asset Procedure and Debt Repayment Orders.

Personal insolvency appointment figures for Bankruptcy, NAP and DRO while not the lowest January on record have remained low.

I have previously predicted that we will see a lift in personal insolvency in the first quarter of 2025, we are not there yet but I may also be pushing that prediction to a later part of the year.

Where to from here?

For 2025 the expectation is that there will be further business failures across all sectors and business sizes as the recovery continues and the IRD keeps pressure on businesses with arrears to be recovered

There will be continued busy times for insolvency practitioners for the next 2-3 years as we deal with the tail from the latest recession.

If you want to have a chat about any points raised or an issue you may have you can call on 0800 30 30 34 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

2024 was a year that got progressively busier for insolvency practitioners and it looks like it will carry on into 2025 based on the Jan figures. The economy continues to struggle on, with businesses facing shrinking margins and decreased demand. The OCR began to drop from the middle of the year, earlier than originally indicated (originally projected to be mid 2025) with the next announcement due out in a few weeks, pundits seem to be predicting another cut of 25 – 50 points. To date these drops have yet to have the desired effect due to the 12-month lag between the drop taking place and the effect being felt. Latest unemployment figures released in January showed the level of unemployed rising to 5.1%.

Winding Up Applications

January is traditionally one of the slower months for winding up applications being advertised (public holidays, Christmas break etc.) but not so in 2025. Last month there were more winding up applications than any other single month in the last 5 years (the next closest was October 2024 with 125).

What was this driven by? In a nutshell IRD. They advertised 100 of the 130 applications for the month. That's 3x what the advertised in January last year and 13 above their next highest months (August & October 2024).

If this is how the year is starting the courts will be pumping with liquidation work and the Official Assignee will be needing to hire a few new staff to deal with all the IRD work it will be seeing. Historically a fair chunk (around 70%) of the IRD applications end up in liquidation.

The 2024 total year applications were up almost 30% on 2023 and close to double the 2021 and 2022 total year figures. Definitely a sign of the times as creditors continue to get tough with debtors and pile on the pressure to recover their funds.

Of the total appointments for 2024, IRD made up 702 of the applications or 63%, the balance of the applications were made by all other creditors combined. The averages over the last 5 years for IRD applications is generally between 55% and 60% of the total (though January 25 was 77%). The IRD's activity remains up on past years as expected given the tax arrears they are trying to recover ($8 billion as at June 2024) through increased enforcement and the additional funding the government are providing them to achieve these recovery goals.

The IRD has continued with its 22-month streak of having more applications than all other creditors. The last time they made less applications was back in March 2023.

The Auckland High Court deals with more winding up applications than the rest of the country combined. That is a fair bit of creditor enforcement and a wide margin between Auckland and the rest of the country. Of interest Christchurch managed to nab the 2nd spot ahead of the capital, potentially the result of the slowdown in building work in the region following the rebuild finishing up and a general slowdown across the industry.

The top 5 were in the same order as the population cap from the Stats NZ 2024 data - Auckland, Canterbury, Wellington, Waikato & Bay of Plenty

Personal Receiverships

Personal receiverships jumped 50% in 2024 up from the 2023 numbers, comparatively personal receiverships soured 400%+ when compared to the 2022 numbers.

As a percentage those are big changes and appear to be driven by the preference of some lenders take towards obtaining a personal general security agreement from borrowers which allows them to appoint receivers upon default, rather than the traditional approach used by the bulk of lenders of relying on the, often slower to enforce, personal guarantee to recover their debts.

January 2025 has started slightly above January 2024 aligning with the winding up applications that we are likely to be in for a busy year of various insolvency appointments. This increase in personal receiverships is yet to be reflected in the formal personal insolvency appointments (bankruptcy, NAP and DRO) yet.

Because there is no public record or available reports on the result of the receiverships (unlike when a company is in receivership the report is available on the register) it is difficult to see how successful the appointment may be and if any funds are recovered along with what the costs involved were on each appointment.

Company Insolvencies – Liquidations, Receiverships, and Voluntary Administrations

December 2024 saw a jump on past years. The increase come from shareholder insolvent liquidations which have doubled on past years, while court insolvent liquidations have remained steady and solvent liquidations have seen a slight drop. January 2025 has started the year on a similar level to 2018 figures, so while not a massive start we have broken 100 appointments in January for the first time in 6 years.

Total insolvency appointments for the year continue to increase beating out all appointment figures back to 2013, so there have been more appointments in 2024 than in any of the last 10 years. With 2,784 appointments in the year. We expect the higher insolvency appointment levels will continue into 2025 at least due to a large backlog at IRD and a struggling economy affecting most industries and restricting consumer spending.

The total corporate appointments are still down 1000 odd appointments on the highs of 2009 when the levels were up to 3,797.

Solvent liquidations remained down on the long-term average (13%), while insolvent shareholder appointments in December far exceeded their long-term average of 51%. The other appointment types donated a point down on their long-term averages to see this rise. I have not provided the breakdown for January 2025 as it is largely insolvency shareholder appointments with the courts not dealing with winding up applications for most of the month.

The gap that has grown between corporate and personal insolvencies has continued to remain sizable; they are yet to return to their long-term trend of tracking each other. This has largely been caused by the rise in corporate insolvency and the continued low levels of personal insolvencies.

Personal Insolvencies – Bankruptcy, No Asset Procedure and Debt Repayment Orders.