Information Releases

Japan’s Business Failures during January to December 2017

(Released by TEIKOKU DATABANK, LTD.)

Highlight and Outstanding Feature

• ■The number of bankruptcies in 2017 was 8,376 (8,164 in the previous year, up 2.6%) and the first year-on-year increase in 8 years since 2009 (13,306 bankruptcies).
• ■Total liabilities came to 1,555,133 million yen (1,991,683 million yen in the previous year), down 21.9% year on year, going below the previous year for the second consecutive year, and marking the smallest amount since 2000.
• ■By industry, the number of bankruptcies exceeded that of the previous year in four out of seven industries, including the retail and service industries.
• ■There were 106 bankruptcies caused by a labor shortage (72 in the previous year), significantly up 47.2% year-on-year.
• ■There were 480 post-moratorium bankruptcies (413 in the previous year), up 16.2% year-on-year.
• ■There were 98 China risk bankruptcies (120 in the previous year), down 18.3% year-on-year.
• ■By region, seven of nine regions experienced year-on-year increases. Of them, Kanto and Kinki saw such increases for the first time in 8 years, while for Chubu it was the second consecutive year of increase.
• ■By mode, there were 7,830 bankruptcies (7,638 in the previous year), up 2.5% from the previous year and exceeding the previous year for the first time in 8 years since 2009. There were 308 cases of special liquidation (279 in the previous year), a double-digit increase of 10.4% from the previous year. There were 8 cases filed under the Corporate Reorganization Law (1 in the previous year), and 230 under the Civil Rehabilitation Act (246 in the previous year).
• ■There was one bankruptcy of a company listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange: Takata Corporation (Civil Rehabilitation Act, June).
• ■The largest amount of liabilities was posted by Takata Corporation (Civil Rehabilitation Act, June), with liabilities of 182,633 million yen.