Business default increases on strike

After four months of stability, the number of late companies accelerated in May, under the influence of the truckers' strike that paralyzed the country for more than ten days.

Last month, 5.5 million companies were on the default list, notes Serasa Experian, a company specializing in financial reporting. This is the largest number of companies having late payments since the beginning of the survey in March 2016.

From January to April, 5.4 million businesses had monthly arrears. In May, 100,000 additional businesses expanded this list. Compared with the same month of 2017, there was an increase of 400,000 businesses, an increase of 7.8%.

Late payment debts also increased by 4.3% over the previous year to reach R $ 124.3 billion.

"The truck drivers' strike had an impact on production lines and companies stopped producing and selling," says Serasa Experian economist Luiz Rabi. Without returning their inventory, they do not have working capital to honor base account payments and debts with the financial system and suppliers.

Rabi explains that this investigation does not reveal the average delay because the criterion is set by the creditor. In other words, Serasa Experian brings together in the same list the CNPJ (National Register of Legal Entities) companies that have not paid the bills on time, one day late or more than 30 days , for example

The survey shows that the increase in delinquency was pulled by service providers. Last month, these companies accounted for almost half (48%) of late payment companies. In May, service providers accounted for 46.7% of all delinquent businesses.

Rabi argues that the damage caused by the strike was concentrated in the services sector because they include a larger number of small and micro enterprises. Normally, small and micro enterprises already face greater difficulties in working capital and, with the strike, they have become worse in this situation.

For the coming months, the trend of business failure is not stabilization. He argues that the financial situation of firms is closely linked to the pace and growth of gross domestic product (GDP), which could continue to slow down.