CRIF AG investigated the number of people who had recorded three or more businesses that went bankrupt over a period of 10 years. We found 2,022 individuals who fulfilled these criteria and, of these, 1,244 people triggered three bankruptcies, followed by 355 people who caused four, 161 five and 68 six bankruptcies respectively. The person at the top of the rankings had driven 78 companies into insolvency, followed by individuals who had contributed to 75, 54, and 44 business bankruptcies respectively.
Men cause more insolvencies
An examination of gender distribution revealed that 93% of these “insolvency artists” are men. The front runner among the remaining female 7% was in charge of 35 businesses that went bankrupt.
Where do the insolvency artists live?
An analysis of the current cantons of residency and those visible from the commercial register shows that the Canton of Zurich is most popular (with 267), followed by the group of “address unknown” insolvency artists (with 231). Next on the list were the Cantons of Vaud (219), Ticino (192) and Geneva (179).
Canton of domicile, legal form and age of the relevant bankrupt businesses
A slightly different picture emerges when we look at the most recent domicile of the bankrupt businesses. This time, most of the companies negatively affected by insolvency artists were to be found in the Canton of Zurich (1,252), followed by the Cantons of Ticino (900), Vaud (876), Geneva (847) and Zug (721).
The most common legal forms for these companies are private limited companies (GmbH) (53%) and public limited companies (Aktiengesellschaften) (38%); sole trader-type businesses play a smaller role, at 8%. The median age of all the affected businesses lies between 6 and 7 years.
About the survey
We looked at every individual who registered three or more bankruptcies within ten years, excluding people who could exert no (or only limited) effect on the success of a business (such as liquidators, proxies, authorised signatories, etc.). We only took account of those people who exercised an active mandate in the bankrupt businesses during the period in which they became bankrupt.
