Company Debt Ltd

“It’s a limited company, so I’m not personally liable.”

That may stop being true the moment you sign a personal guarantee. ✍️

Personal guarantees are common with:
• Business loans
• Overdrafts
• Commercial leases
• Supplier credit

They allow the creditor to pursue you personally if the company cannot pay. ⚠️

Before signing, check four things:

Capped or uncapped?
Uncapped can mean the full debt, interest and legal costs.

Secured or unsecured?
A secured guarantee may be tied directly to your home or another asset. 🏠

Facility-specific or all-monies?
“All-monies” can cover every debt owed to that lender, not just one facility.

Does your spouse need to sign?
This may put jointly owned assets at risk.

Personal guarantees are not always avoidable. But they should be read, understood and negotiated before the business urgently needs the money.

Full guide:
https://www.companydebt.com/advice/the-risks-of-signing-a-personal-guarantee/

If a guarantee is already being enforced, speak to a licensed insolvency practitioner. Initial consultations are confidential and usually free.

About 12% of invoices from large UK companies are paid more than 60 days after they are issued.

Every large UK company has to report how fast it pays suppliers, by law, twice a year. We pulled the government's full export and took each company's latest report over the 18 months to July 2026, about 6,600 companies.

How those invoices actually get paid:
Within 30 days: 60%
31 to 60 days: 28%
Later than 60 days: 12%

The average comes out at 35 days, which looks survivable. The problem is the tail. The invoices that run well past 60 days are the ones that turn a working capital gap into a solvency question.

One caveat worth stating plainly. These are self-reported figures, unaudited, and only large companies have to file them. So this is how big businesses say they pay, not the whole economy.

Full data and method:
https://www.companydebt.com/data/payment-practices-late-payment/

Source: UK payment practices reporting (gov.uk), around 6,600 companies, 18 months to July 2026.

Company failures fell 10% last month. Administrations rose 80%.

Both numbers come from the same Insolvency Service release, published on 17 July.

June 2026, England and Wales:

Total company insolvencies: 1,845. Flat on May. Down 10% on June 2025.
Creditors' voluntary liquidations: 1,364. Down 15% on the year.
Compulsory liquidations: 276. Down 15% on the year.
Administrations: 191. Up 45% on May, up 80% on June 2025.
Company voluntary arrangements: 14. Down 44% on May.

The headline reads like a recovery. The composition does not.

Liquidation is mostly what happens to small companies. Administration is mostly what happens to larger ones, the kind with staff, contracts, and a business someone might still want to buy.

So: fewer companies are failing, and the ones that do are bigger.

Meanwhile CVAs, the main legal tool for rescuing a company without closing it, fell to 14 in a month. Across a national economy, that is not a rounding error. It is a rescue mechanism close to disuse.

Full figures by procedure, by sector, back to 2000:
https://www.companydebt.com/data/uk-insolvency-statistics/

Source: Insolvency Service, Company Insolvency Statistics June 2026 (accredited official statistics).

📉 UK company insolvencies rose again in April 2026.

The latest figures show 2,085 company insolvencies in England and Wales, up 2% on March and 3% year-on-year. CVLs remain the dominant procedure, making up 72% of the total, while compulsory liquidations were up 19% on the previous month.

We’ve created a new UK Insolvency Statistics page to track the data clearly each month, including:

📊 headline insolvency figures
📈 insolvency rates over time
🏢 procedure breakdowns
🔎 sector trends

For directors, advisers, journalists, and anyone tracking the health of UK businesses, it’s designed to make the official data easier to understand and use.

Explore the latest update here: https://www.companydebt.com/uk-insolvency-statistics/

UK Company Insolvency Statistics: April 2026 Update | 2026 0 cards reviewed · Independently assessed · Rates verified 19 May 2026