UK Insolvency Intelligence Digest

Court filings, administrations, legal developments and credit risk signals drawn from live case data and market intelligence, 16 April – 18 May 2026

Five weeks of UK High Court filings reveal a credit landscape under sustained pressure. HMRC’s grip on winding-up petitions is loosening – from over 80% in early 2026 to 62% in this period – as commercial creditors step up enforcement. Energy suppliers now file more WUPs than any sector outside HMRC. Meanwhile, administrations are spreading from retail and hospitality into aerospace, professional services and food manufacturing.

The question for credit managers is not whether insolvency risk is rising, but where it will surface next.

The Numbers

Five weeks | 17 Filing Days | 1,333 Days

1,333

Total Cases Filed

509

Winding up petitions

111

Backruptcy Petitions

106

Administration Nois

18

Director Disqualifications

30

Avg Wups Per Day

The aggregate filing rate across the period ran at around 78 cases per working day. Winding Up Petitions account for 38% of all filings and represent the primary enforcement tool for both HMRC and commercial creditors. The peak filing day was 27 April with 52 WUPs as post-Easter enforcement backlogs cleared through the system.

The volume of administration notices -106 across five weeks, points to a significant level of formal distress beyond the WUP pipeline. These are businesses that have already engaged insolvency practitioners and are actively seeking either a rescue or an orderly wind-down. At that rate, the UK is seeing roughly four or five new formal administrations every working day.

“At 30 winding-up petitions per working day, UK courts are processing an enforcement action against a company roughly every 16 minutes. That pace is not slowing.”

HMRC Watch

Petitioner analysis - Wups only

HMRC led 315 of the 509 winding-up petitions in this period- 61.9% of all WUPs. This is a material shift from the 80%+ share recorded in April. Two readings are possible: HMRC's enforcement pipeline is normalising after the post-Covid surge, or commercial creditors have become significantly more willing to petition. The data suggests both are true simultaneously.

HMRC 315
Yu Energy Retail 14
British Gas Trading 11
EDF Energy Customers 4
NWF Fuels 4
Siemens Financial Services 3
Edmundson Electrical 3
MKM Building Supplies 3
Premium Credit 3
Sunbelt Rentals 3
Barrett Steel 3

The energy sector signal is clear. Yu Energy, British Gas and EDF together account for 29 WUPs – more than any single trade creditor category. Energy debt has become a primary enforcement trigger, particularly for SMEs in logistics, hospitality and construction.

Credit managers with customers in those sectors should treat overdue energy accounts as a leading indicator of wider financial distress.

Edmundson Electrical filing three WUPs warrants attention for anyone in the electrical distribution or construction supply chain. The name appearing as a petitioner, rather than a debtor, confirms they are actively enforcing.

Their trade credit terms are tightening in practice even where headline policies have not changed.

Court Geography

Winding up petitions by filing location

Court Wups Filed % of Total
London (Central) 444 87.2%
Leeds 42 8.3%
Liverpool 22 4.3%
Cardiff 1 0.2%

London’s 87% share rejects the centralisation of the Business and Property Courts rather than purely geographic distress concentration.

The Leeds figure – 42 WUPs, 8.3% of the total – is a better proxy for genuine Northern distress and represents a meaningful volume in its own right.

Administrations in Focus

Notable appointments | April - May 2026

The 106 administration notices span an unusually wide sector range. The cases most relevant to credit managers and trade creditors:

Aeralis Ltd

AEROSPACE · 15 MAY 2026 · BUCHLER PHILLIPS (JO MILNER, DAVID BUCHLER)

Developer of a modular light jet platform pitched as a potential Red Arrows replacement. Administration followed funding pressures and delays to the UK Defence Investment Plan. Strategic options under review including new investment, sale or alternative restructuring.

Technology, IP and partnerships are the focus of preservation efforts.

Aeralis Ltd

AEROSPACE · 15 MAY 2026 · BUCHLER PHILLIPS (JO MILNER, DAVID BUCHLER)

Developer of a modular light jet platform pitched as a potential Red Arrows replacement. Administration followed funding pressures and delays to the UK Defence Investment Plan. Strategic options under review including new investment, sale or alternative restructuring.

Technology, IP and partnerships are the focus of preservation efforts.

Holmsterne Foods

FOOD MANUFACTURING · 11 MAY 2026 · INTERPATH (JAMES CLARK, HOWARD SMITH)

North Yorkshire prepared meat and vegetable supplier. Turnaround efforts and sale process failed to overcome sustained margin pressure from rising ingredient, packaging, factory and employment costs.

Approximately 130 employees made redundant in an orderly wind-down.

Exertis (UK) Ltd

TECHNOLOGY DISTRIBUTION · 30 APRIL 2026

Notable filing given Exertis’s scale in technology distribution. Trade creditors in the electronics and IT supply chain should verify exposure. Exertis also appears in the WUP data as a petitioner – indicating active enforcement on its own debtor book simultaneously with its own administration filing.

ES Broadcast Group

MEDIA / BROADCAST HIRE · 14 MAY 2026 · MULTIPLE ENTITIES

ES Broadcast Hire Limited, ES Broadcast Limited, ES Media Group Limited and ES Broadcast S.I. Ltd all filed simultaneously. Group-wide administration. Trade creditors in broadcast and media hire should verify exposure across all entities before assuming any single entity relationship is unaffected.

Curo Construction Group

CONSTRUCTION · 14 MAY 2026 · THREE ENTITIES

Curo Construction Limited, Curo Group Holdings Ltd and Curo Interiors Ltd filed simultaneously. Group-wide failure in the construction sector – consistent with the broader pattern of construction supply chain stress visible throughout the WUP data.

Amiry & Gilbride Healthcare

HEALTHCARE · 29 APRIL 2026 · BDO (KERRY BAILEY, DAVID WALLIS, JAMES STEPHEN)

Holding company behind a Scottish pharmacy group. Administration affects the parent only with trading pharmacy subsidiaries continuing to operate under a new governance structure while administrators assess the group’s financial position and prepare a sale process.

Rosling King LLP

LEGAL SERVICES · NOI FILED MAY 2026

City law firm filing a Notice of Intention to appoint administrators after significant creditor pressure became unmanageable.

Franco Manca 2 UK Limited

HOSPITALITY · CVA · APRIL 2026 · PINSENT MASONS ADVISING

CVA covering approximately 70 sites with around 16 closures and 225 jobs at risk. Parent The Fulham Shore citing employer NI rises, elevated business rates and labour cost inflation. A bellwether for casual dining – if Franco Manca needs a CVA, the pressure on less well-known brands will be severe.

Surface Transforms plc

ADVANCED MANUFACTURING / AIM · 22 APRIL 2026 · ALVAREZ & MARSAL

Kirkby, Merseyside maker of carbon-ceramic brake discs. Lost its General Motors contract which formed the majority of its revenue. An administration was triggered after no buyer emerged from a formal sale process. A clean case study in single-customer concentration risk.

Market Financial Solutions: A Warning for Private Credit

Private Credit | £1.8bn Exposure

The Market Financial Solutions administration, with AlixPartners (Ben Browne and Simon Appell) as administrators, is the most significant private credit story of the period. Initial findings point to alleged double-pledging of loan collateral, servicing failures, and more than £1.8 billion in unsecured claims.

Proposals filed in April describe a breakdown in controls over collections and record-keeping, with some funders now competing over the same assets.

For trade creditors and credit managers, the MFS collapse is a reminder that private credit markets carry structural risks only fully visible in a downturn. Any business with significant customer exposure to private-

credit-backed acquirers or leveraged buyout vehicles should review credit terms accordingly. By contrast, Global Counsel, Peter Mandelson’s lobbying arm, collapsed for entirely different reasons: a reputationally-driven client exodus in early 2026 wiped a previously profitable business almost overnight, producing a £4.6m shortfall with no realistic prospect of rescue.

“When funders are competing over the same collateral, the question is not who has the strongest legal claim, it is who gets there first. Due diligence on the servicer’s records is now the first thing any private credit investor should demand.”

Sector Signals

Reading the Data for Credit Risk

The UK high street continues its structural reset. Analysis from Isadore Goldman published in the period describes persistently high insolvency levels and rising costs driving retailers toward CVAs and administrations and characterises this as a long-term structural shift, not a cyclical blip.

Early intervention remains the critical differentiator between a rescue and a wind-down.

Sector Evidence from Filing Data Risk
Hospitality & Restaurant Franco Manca CVA, Souvlaki & Bar, The Real Greek Food Company, Persian Palace, SJP Catering all Gling. Structural cost pressures: NI rises, business rates, labour HIGH
Construction Curo Group (3 entities), Atlantic Construction, Northwest Demolition. Energy suppliers repeatedly petitioning construction SMEs. MKM Building Supplies Gling WUPs HIGH
Logistics & Haulage SUMA Logistics, MJ Haulage, BMB Logistics, Davis-Wright Haulage. Yu Energy and British Gas the dominant petitioners in this sector HIGH
Food Manufacturing Holmsterne Foods, Ho2man’s Foods, Millennium Dough Company. Cost-push on ingredients and packaging with no margin recovery mechanism ELEVATED
Professional Services Rosling King NOI, Global Counsel CVL. Reputational exits accelerate once distress becomes known — no time for managed recovery ELEVATED
Broadcast & Media ES Broadcast Group (4 entities simultaneously). Sector-specific demand pressures post-pandemic still working through ELEVATED

Legal Developments

What the Courts Decided | Credit Implications

TAQA Appeal – Intra-Group Transactions (Court of Appeal)

Directors must now justify each step of an intra-group transaction by reference to the benefit of the specific company involved. Broader group strategy is no longer a sufficient s.238 defence. The undervalue defence has been significantly narrowed.

Credit implication: When assessing group credit risk, treat intra-group loan balances and inter-company transfers as potential preference or undervalue claims in any distress scenario. They are no longer safe from challenge.

Waldorf Restructuring Plan – HMRC Crammed Down (High Court)

The High Court confirmed that HMRC can be crammed down under a Part 26A restructuring plan. The “no worse off” test is confined to rights actually compromised by the plan. Tax losses may still be relevant to the court’s fairness analysis where central to the deal.

Credit implication: HMRC’s preferential status does not protect it from being overridden in a Part 26A plan. Creditors negotiating in restructuring scenarios should understand that HMRC’s position is no longer a guaranteed floor.

Greensill / Softbank – Undervalue Transfer, No relief (High Court)

Greensill’s $440m transfer to SoftBank was found to be a transaction at an undervalue – but the court declined to grant relief because SoftBank acted in good faith and the transferred assets had subsequently become worthless through no fault of its own.

Credit implication: The good faith defence is powerful but fact-specifc. Document all commercial decisions contemporaneously. Where assets transfer within a group or to a connected party, independent valuation evidence and arm’s-length terms are essential.

Liquidators Cannot Cap Personal Liability (High Court)

Liquidators cannot contractually limit their personal liability in a members’ voluntary liquidation. Their fiduciary duty to administer a statutory trust cannot be waived or capped- though limitation clauses may still apply to their arms for ancillary services.

Credit implication: This affects how IP firms price and resource appointments and may influence which practitioners accept certain mandates, particularly lower-value MVLs where personal exposure is disproportionate to fees.

New 2025 Practice Statement – Schemes and Restructuring Plans

The updated Practice Statement governs both Part 26 schemes and Part 26A restructuring plans. It front-loads disclosure and creditor engagement, imposes mandatory listing notes, tighter timetables and active judicial case management. The evidential bar for companies seeking sanction has been raised materially.

Credit implication: Creditors involved in restructuring plan negotiations now have earlier and more structured rights to information and engagement. The window between NOI and plan sanction is the point of maximum creditor leverage — use it.

What this means for Credit Managers

Practical Guidances | Credit Management

1. Review energy debt on your customer accounts. Yu Energy and British Gas are petitioning at scale. Any customer with overdue energy accounts is a WUP risk within weeks, not months. Treat utility payment performance as a live credit signal, not a background indicator.

2. Apply group-level scrutiny to intra-company balances. Following the TAQA ruling, intra-group loans and inter-company transfers in distressed groups are more likely to be challenged as preferences or undervalue transactions. Reduce unsecured exposure to subsidiaries of groups showing signs of stress.

3. Construction and logistics are your highest-risk sectors right now.

The WUP data and administration filings confirm disproportionate distress in these two sectors. Tighten credit terms, reduce limits where possible and increase monitoring frequency.

4. Professional services clients can fail fast and leave little behind. Global Counsel and Rosling King both demonstrate that once reputational distress sets in, client exodus is immediate and recovery is impossible. Fee-based businesses with high WIP and low tangible assets give creditors very little in insolvency.

5. Engage early in any restructuring process. The new Practice Statement gives creditors earlier and more structured rights. If a customer files a Notice of Intention to appoint administrators, treat it as the moment to act – not the moment to wait and see.

Closing Note

The data in this digest represents live court filings – not lagging economic indicators. Every winding-up petition is a creditor who has already exhausted other options. Every administration notice is a business that has already engaged an insolvency practitioner. The time between those filings and a credit loss landing on a balance sheet is
measured in months, not years.

4D Contact works with credit teams and finance directors to build the monitoring, policy and recovery infrastructure that converts early warning signals into reduced bad debt. If any of the companies, sectors or legal developments in this digest are relevant to your credit book, we welcome a conversation.

“509 WUPs. 106 administrations. 111 bankruptcy petitions. In five weeks. The pipeline of distress visible in the filing data today is the collections challenge landing on your desk in six to twelve months.”

Martin Kirby FCIM, Non-Executive Director, 4D Contact

Methodology: Case data sourced from Caseboard.io daily court alert feeds covering UK Business and Property Courts filings 16 April – 18 May 2026. 17 daily alert articles parsed; 1,333 unique cases extracted after deduplication on case reference. Insolvency intelligence sourced from Insolvency Insider editions October 2025 – May 2026. This digest is prepared for general information purposes and does not constitute legal or financial advice.

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