Mark Fine, Aymen Mahmoud and Sunay Radia, McDermott Will & Emery

This is an extract from the 2023 edition of GRR's Europe, Middle East and Africa Restructuring Review. The whole publication is available here.

Our last newsletter commented on high inflation, dwindling business confidence and international supply chain issues. Those factors continue to influence the economic outlook, with some businesses unable to survive the strengthening head winds impacting the economy. The consumer price index increased 7.2 percent in the 12 months to December 2022, remaining stubbornly high despite significant movements in the official cash rate to 4.5%, up significantly from the 0.25% it was sitting at in October 2021. ANZ's economic forecast warns that a "policy induced recession is looming".

A large number of UK companies are in significant financial distress at the moment.

Following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), there are many questions being asked across the financial and tech space: what caused the bank to collapse? Could it have been prevented? What could the bank itself and indeed its 40,000 customers - mostly in tech – done differently to mitigate risk and minimise impact.

Given SVB’s involvement in funding many fledgling tech start-ups and scale-ups, we look into what the Bank’s failure could have spelled for the viability of these businesses, and indeed the customers they supply into.

The collapse will have far reaching ramifications for many businesses and financial institutions across the UK

On Friday 10 March 2023 it was announced that the Bank of England intends to place Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited (SBV UK) into a Bank Insolvency Procedure following the collapse of its parent company, Silicon Valley Bank, in the US.

This year is expected to be challenging for small businesses due to the possible recession in key markets, disruptions of global supply chains caused by issues such as the Ukrainian war, and the continuing fallout from last year’s crypto winter.

Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th largest bank in the US, was shut down on Friday by US regulators. Founded in 1983, Silicon Valley Bank has played an integral role in the technology sector, lending capital to tech start-ups with high growth potential.

How will the Silicon Valley Bank collapse impact tech firms

The impact of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse on tech start-ups is expected to be significant as many will struggle to survive without access to capital to pay business expenses.

1. INTRODUCTION

Supply chains are facing a fresh barrage of challenges. There are an almost infinite variety of issues that can arise within the supply chain. Minor irritants that historically may have just made business a bit more difficult to transact can, in the current environment, cumulatively exert significant pressure. Additionally, an over reliance on a third party or failure to spot the weakest links in this chain could have a catastrophic impact on your business

In our latest insight, we consider how to identify pinch points in your supply chain and de-risk them.

Last year saw the construction industry face significant challenges, insolvency levels were up with over 5,000 company failures and nearly 23,000 companies in distress by the last quarter.

Construction businesses in the North-East had the second highest sector insolvency rates, with an estimated 540 companies suffering from distress in the last quarter of 2022 –  the highest of any sector.

This distress has now come to fruition with the recent insolvencies of two of the North East’s largest main contractors, Metnor Construction and Tolent Construction.