Which companies are parking in the financial disaster zone

Company bankruptcy is no longer about bad luck or a bad cycle, but about the hard arithmetic of expensive debts, shows data published by the credit risk analysis company Coface in its January 2026 report "Corporate insolvencies expected to remain stubbornly high in 2026, after climbing further in 2025".

An independent assessment reaches the same conclusion: according to Allianz Trade, 2026 will mark the fifth consecutive year of growth in global insolvencies, an unprecedented situation after the financial crisis, with an estimated advance of approximately +3% worldwide, after +6% in 2025, as shown in its "Global Insolvency Outlook 2026" report.

The Coface report on corporate insolvencies confirms a clear fact: developed economies have entered a regime of persistently high bankruptcies, after three consecutive years of growth.

According to the study, the dynamics no longer indicate an isolated peak, but a high plateau of market exits.

The data summarized by Coface show that the decline in insolvencies in 2020-2021 was the result of public support and procedural suspensions. After the measures were withdrawn, the tide quickly turned. In 2022, insolvencies increased by around 50% in France and the United Kingdom and by around 40% in Australia and Canada, the report shows. In 2023, they rose by 22% in Germany, 35% in Japan and 40% in the United States. In 2024-2025, the pace slowed down, but the level remained 25-40% above that of 2019. For 2026, the Coface baseline scenario indicates a new aggregate growth of around +2.8%, described as stabilization at a high level.

Allianz Trade points to the same structural factors: insufficient economic growth to stabilize insolvencies, restrictive refinancing conditions, persistently high interest rates and limited credit supply, with direct pressure on highly leveraged companies and SMEs. The institution shows that North America and Asia will lead the increase in insolvencies in 2026 (around +4%), while Western Europe could only register a marginal correction, after four years of strong growth.

On the other hand, the Coface and Allianz Trade studies offer solid operational explanations, but critical analysis of their own data indicates four limits to interpretation:

1. The first limit concerns the mix between economy and administration.

Coface specifies that the series of insolvencies are influenced by legislative changes and the behavior of tax authorities. The reforms of procedures in Italy and Spain are changing the statistical bases.

The return of tax institutions to enforcement generates waves of new files.

Judicial backlogs (backlogs accumulated in the processing of cases) distort the annual dynamics. The indicator no longer strictly reflects economic health, but also administrative speed.

2. The second limit concerns the role of interest rates.

Coface treats the cost of financing as a cyclical shock. However, its data shows a structural filter effect: corporate bond yields exceed 5% in the UK, 4.25% in the US and 3.5% in Germany; short-term loans for SMEs reach around 6.5% in the UK and 8% in the US at the end of 2025.

The report estimates that an additional increase of just 0.25 percentage points would push the increase in insolvencies in 2026 to around +4.7%. The sensitivity shows that many companies are operating at the limit of debt service sustainability.

Coface explicitly defines the financial damage zone through two simultaneous indicators: interest coverage below 2 and net debt above three times EBITDA. The share of companies with this profile increases in construction, chemicals, textiles and manufacturing.

Allianz Trade confirms the vulnerability of capital-intensive sectors and explicitly indicates construction and the automotive industry as critical areas, under the pressure of high interest rates, technological change and increased competition.

3. The third limit concerns commercial and energy fragmentation.

The Coface report mentions tariffs, geopolitical tensions and energy costs, but treats them sectorally.

The systemic consequence may, however, be harsher: differences in energy costs and access to markets break margins between regions.

In European chemicals, capacity utilization is down to around 75%, about 7.5 percentage points below the pre-pandemic level, and the share of companies with difficult-to-service debts is almost four times higher than before the gas price hike.

4. The fourth limitation is related to the sectoral database.

Coface shows that stress tests mainly use listed companies and large companies with publicly traded debt, but subcontractors and SMEs are incompletely captured, although waves of insolvency often start in supply chains. The ability to anticipate decreases when the most fragile segment remains partially invisible.

Allianz Trade explicitly warns that the risk of contagion increases with large insolvencies, with domino effect in commercial chains and with the amplification of the risk of non-payment between companies.

The institution adds an additional technological risk: a severe correction in the area of technology and artificial intelligence, of the speculative bubble type, could generate thousands of additional insolvencies in large economies.

The Coface report also shows the direct role of the state in triggering insolvency procedures:

- in France, the social contribution collection institution URSSAF initiates between 30% and 40% of liquidation requests;

- in the UK, HMRC filed almost 65% of forced dissolution requests in the second half of 2023, compared to 34% a year earlier.

The result is coherent in both major sources of study: high debt meets expensive money, refinancing becomes selective, tax enforcement returns, commercial chains transmit the shock, and margins are compressed.

Insolvencies no longer describe a short cyclical episode. They describe a structural adjustment.