\u201cHowever, this is an external shock, not a homegrown economic failure. When offshore conditions stabilise, the relief here will be felt quickly, although a full return to normality will take time as prices and supply rebalance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams said the international situation is responsible for business uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cElevated input costs, heightened supply side risk, and persistent caution around spending continue to cause consumer confidence to fall and demand to drop off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several consumer-facing sectors recorded notable quarterly declines.<\/p>\n
Food and beverage insolvencies in the first quarter of the year fell by 36% to 94, compared with the previous quarter (145).<\/p>\n
However, insolvencies in the sector are 31% higher than at the same period last year.<\/p>\n
Retail trade insolvencies dropped from 95 in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 43 in the first quarter this year. <\/p>\n
Williams said consumer\u2011dependent businesses remain vulnerable in the months ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe onset of winter will amplify the consequences that flow from troubled countries. The hardest hit will be those that rely on discretionary spending for incidentals, with that demand likely to drop significantly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Construction continues to record the highest number of insolvencies by volume, with 215 cases in quarter one, up from 201 in quarter four.<\/p>\n
Williams said there are still many companies with lean balance sheets in the wake of the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of those companies have accumulated an obligation to Inland Revenue and it is only a matter of time before a demand gets satisfied or liquidation will result,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Last year there were 2867 reported company liquidations in New Zealand, the highest in 15 years, according to data from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.<\/p>\n
A contributing factor in the rising liquidations has been the Inland Revenue Department ramping up its debt enforcement work over the past couple of years.<\/p>\n
Inland Revenue pushed through 893 winding up applications last year, up from 702 in 2024, according to figures from McDonald Vague.<\/p>\n
The Insolvency and Trustee Service (ITS), or the Official Assignee, which acts as the court\u2019s default liquidator when no other firms take on an appointment, administered 586 liquidations in the June 2025 financial year \u2013 an average of almost 49 per month.<\/p>\n
However, between July 2025 and April 2026, latest data shows there have been 586 ITS-administered liquidations, roughly 58 per month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHowever, this is an external shock, not a homegrown economic failure. When offshore conditions stabilise, the relief here…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[276],"tags":[26848,79,6457,20201,2594,42738,18,13676,2758,7717,135,19,1262,17,7710,167,502,195395,197131,143583,523,32228,65759,5708,173,29940],"class_list":["post-511323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-amid","tag-business","tag-businesses","tag-but","tag-data","tag-despite","tag-eire","tag-global","tag-has","tag-have","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-insolvencies","tag-ireland","tag-kiwi","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-peaked","tag-remain","tag-remains","tag-risk","tag-risks","tag-showing","tag-shows","tag-stress","tag-uncertainty"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}