Corporate bankruptcies are going bigly in 2025. In the 12 months between the second half of 2024 to the first half of 2025, 117 companies with assets over $100 million filed for bankruptcy, a 44% increase over the 20-year average, according to a new report by consulting firm Cornerstone Research.
The jump in “mega bankruptcies”—those filed by companies with over $1 billion in reported assets—was even more stark, growing 33% over the last year alone, marking the highest number of mega bankruptcies in a six-month period since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.
Continued inflation, high interest rates, falling consumer demand, tariffs, and uncertain policy shifts are driving the increase in bankruptcies, especially for companies already struggling, according Matt Osborn, a principal at Cornerstone Research and co-author of the report.
“A number of companies already have weak balance sheets from the prior three years or so under high inflation and interest rates,” Osborn told CFO Dive. “Additional uncertainty regarding the regulatory landscape is more recently layered on top of that so companies that are already weakened by general macroeconomic headwinds are also now citing policy uncertainty.”
Manufacturing was hit particularly hard by policy changes in Washington recently, with “the highest share of bankruptcy filings across all industries,” with 30% of all filings according to the report. Among the manufacturers filing mega bankruptcies, 67% “cited regulatory, legal, and policy landscape as a key financial distress driver.”
This report was originally published by CFO Brew.
