More liquidations in the Centre North. Lazio and Lombardy are at the top

It is the regions of the Centre-North that have the highest percentages of companies starting a judicial liquidation in 2025. Last year, new procedures increased by 7 per cent, with marked differences between different areas of the country in the ratio of registrations to registered companies. The growth was driven by the Centre (+13.3%), followed by the North (+7.7%), while in the South the rate of companies that initiated liquidation remained stable (+0.1%).

A snapshot of the situation is provided by the data censuring judicial liquidations (the locution with which the Crisis Code has replaced the term bankruptcy) initiated in court, processed by Cribis for Il Sole 24 Ore on Monday. Within the sphere of bankruptcy procedures, i.e. procedures that deal with business crises, judicial liquidations representthe most used procedure (more than 70% of the total according to Unioncamere-Infocamere). The increase has been going on for four years (+38% since 2022) and signals the difficulties of companies in coping with an economic situation increasingly characterised by geopolitical instability, wars and rising energy costs.

The Cribis data record judicial liquidations initiated at the courts and reported by them to the Companies Register. They thus portray situations of difficulty that had previously matured and came to a head when the court proceedings were initiated. Trade (wholesale and retail) and construction are the most affected business sectors.

The territorial map shows that the effects on the productive fabric are by no means uniform. With one caveat: the data on judicial liquidations photograph only part of the difficulties, while often the crisis translates into the simple cessation of business, without going to court. The concentration of procedures in the Centre-North should therefore be read from this perspective: "Judicial liquidations represent a minority part of business closures," says Marco Preti, CEO of Cribis, "The prevalent share is attributable to voluntary or physiological closures, decided directly by entrepreneurs. It is likely that in southern Italy, where smaller and less structured companies are concentrated, there are more direct terminations, which do not go through the courts'. More often than not, the crossroads for the company is the presence or absence of creditors.

The regional ranking in terms of the number of proceedings initiated per thousand active companies is led by Lazio, Lombardia and Emilia Romagna, regions characterised by a strong presence of small and medium-sized manufacturing companies, which are more exposed to economic difficulties.