‘Red flag' alert as 45,000 businesses across UK on brink of COLLAPSE, shows worrying report after tariff & tax hikes
The report highlights the perilous situation for UK high streets
RISKY BUSINESS 'Red flag' alert as 45,000 businesses across UK on brink of COLLAPSE, shows worrying report after tariff & tax hikes
TENS of thousands of businesses across the UK are on the brink of collapse a worrying report reveals.
Shocking new findings reveal how businesses are struggling as the economy heads toward major tariff and tax hikes.
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Over 45,000 businesses are on the brink
Credit: Alamy
The 'Red Flag Alert' report from Begbies Traynor has provided a snapshot of British corporate health for nearly two decades.
As of 31 March this year, 45,416 businesses were found to be in "critical" financial distress.
This is a 13.1 per cent rise versus Q1 2024, despite a 3.1 per cent fall during the first quarter of 2025.
In the context of business finances, "critical distress" represents a severely negative financial situation where insolvency is highly likely in the near future.
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Red Flag Alert monitors 22 sectors, nearly two-thirds of which experienced a double-digit percentage increase of companies in 'critical' financial distress in the last 12 months.
The high street is bearing the brunt of the crisis as the picture is most concerning in the UK's consumer-facing economy.
The number of businesses in distress skyrocketed across Bars and Restaurants, with an increase of 31.2 per cent, and Travel and Tourism which saw a 25.5 per cent increase.
The General Retailers sector also saw a rise of 12.4% per cent.
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But more importantly, the Real Estate & Property Services, Construction, and General Retailers sectors, which comprise the three bellwether sectors in the UK, represented more than a third of companies in 'critical' financial distress.
This represents over 16,000 companies, highlighting the perilous situation for the UK economy.
The levels of "significant" distress also rose by 4.5 per cent in the last twelve months despite a 11.5 per cent decrease during the first quarter of this year.
The Hotels and Accommodation, Real Estate and Property Services and Leisure and Cultural Activities sectors saw the highest increase in "significant" distress since the first quarter of 2024.
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But it's the Support Services, Construction, and Real Estate and Property Services sectors where this "significant" distress is most pronounced affecting over 241,000 companies.
Ric Traynor, Executive Chairman of Begbies Traynor, said: "After a year characterised by weakening consumer confidence and the spectre of a higher tax burden, 2025 looks like will offer more challenges."
Which retailers went bust in 2024?
DURING 2024, 27 retailers of all sizes went bust, affecting 886 shops and 17,939 employees, according to the Centre for Retail Research.
The number of casualties is more than half the previous year's rate of retail collapses, when 61 chains failed and 971 shops were impacted.
Here, we explain some of the biggest retailers that got into trouble in 2024...
Sook
Sook was one of the first retail casualties of 2024 and was particularly depressing as it was meant to be the answer to empty high street stores.
The business operated 12 pop-up shops across the country in London, Birmingham, Southampton, Liverpool, Newcastle and Leeds and made high street space available for online brands like TikTok.
Tile Choice
Tile Choice, a Midlands-based flooring retailer with 18 shops, went into administration in January 2024.
Nine stores were snapped up by rival Tile Giant but the rest were not saved.
The business had 116 staff and £16million turnover in the last financial year, but had struggled with a slowdown in spending.
LloydsPharmacy
LloydsPharmacy, once the UK's second biggest community pharmacy chain, went into liquidation in late January with debts of £293million.
The previous year it had closed all of its pharmacies inside Sainsbury's and divided its 1,000 pharmacy estate into packages of hundreds of stores that it then sold to rivals in smaller deals.
There are no more LloydsPharmacy-branded sites on the high street, but it continues to operate online.
The Body Shop
The Body Shop filed for shock administration in February, just four months after being taken over by restructuring firm Aurelius.
Administrators immediately closed 75 of its 198 UK stores and made cuts to its head office while its international divisions were also declared bankrupt.
It took seven months for a rescue to be sealed with British cosmetics tycoon Mike Jatania in a deal that has kept 113 shops trading.
Matches Fashion
Matches Fashion, the designer clothing online retailer, was put into administration in March, less than three months after it was bought by Mike Ashley's Frasers Group.
Frasers Group bought the business for £52million but said it was too heavily loss-making to turn around and closed it down.
The firm was founded 30 years ago by husband and wife team Tom and Ruth Chapman, who made £400million when selling the business to private equity firm Apax in 2017.
Ted Baker
Designer clothing and accessories brand Ted Baker initially filed for administration in April after the company that ran the brand in the UK also went bust.
At the time, Ted Baker had 46 shops in the UK employing around 975 people.
The business had been taken private by US firm Authentic Brands Group in a £211million deal.
The last stores shut in August after failing to secure a full rescue. It was relaunched as an online brand in the UK and Europe after a partnership with United Legwear & Apparel Co.
Muji
Japanese brand Muji, which had six stores in the UK including five in London's busiest shopping streets, went into administration at the end of March.
The retailer had been popular with shoppers who liked its minimalistic stationery and homewares.
It was saved after a rescue deal with its parent company.
Carpetright
Flooring retailer Carpetright filed for administration in July after efforts to turnaround the struggling firm were derailed by a cyber attack.
The business had 1,800 staff and 273 shops across the country before going bust.
Around 54 stores were snapped up by its arch-rival Tapi Carpets & Floors, which also bought its brand name and continues to run the brand online.
The Floor Room
The Floor Room was owned by the same parent company behind Carpetright, Nestware Holdings.
The business traded out of 34 John Lewis concessions and employed 201 people.
The firm also relied on Carpetright for a number of its essential customer support services and could not survive on its own.
Homebase
DIY chain Homebase collapsed in November after years of struggles.
The business had around 130 shops across the UK and had been owned by restructuring firm Hilco, which bought the business for a single £1 in 2018.
Australia's Wesfarmers had briefly owned Homebase in a disastrous attempt to break into the UK market.
Westfarmers bought Homebase in 2016 after Sainsbury's £1 billion purchase of Argos triggered a break-up of Home Retail Group.
The brand and some stores have been partially rescued by billionaire Chris Dawson, the owner of The Range and Wilko.
While the number of businesses in critical distress did fall in the first quarter of this year, Traynor said this could be the "calm before the storm" ahead of the uncertainty around US tariffs.
He added: "Additionally, the recent increases to both employers' national insurance contributions and the national minimum wage is likely to result in increased distress levels later in the year as many marginal businesses struggle to absorb further cost inflation.
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"Ultimately, if the current pressures on businesses do not ease over the next 12 months, Red Flag Alert's data points to a large number of these critically distressed businesses progressing towards formal insolvency."
Partner at Begbies Traynor, Julie Palmer, admitted that "optimism remains in short supply for UK businesses".
Palmer acknowledged the consumer-facing sectors of the economy were "clearly continuing to struggle" as they operate on notoriously tight margins.
However, she added there is a "small window of opportunity for business leaders who stand at the crossroads and must decide which path to take".
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She said: "Restructuring, refinancing, selling or closing will be options many will have to decide between, so navigating towards the right outcome will be the target for 2025.
"Sadly, I fear there will be many potholes that cannot be avoided later this year which will prove too much for some."
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