That’s the finding of the latest annual research from Deloitte, the business advisory firm.
During 2014, 119 retailers went into administration, compared with 183 in 2013.
39 of the appointments occurred in the first three months of the year.
The total number of administrations across all sectors tracked in the analysis was down 20 per cent on 2013, with 1,302 businesses going into administration.
Almost all industries saw a decrease in administrations last year, with only the financial services and IT sectors witnessing an increase of 2.5 per cent and 14 per cent respectively.
Regionally, 328 administrations took place in London and 280 in the north west.
“After a few turbulent years, we saw fewer casualties in the retail sector in 2014,” Lee Manning, restructuring services partner at Deloitte, says.
“As the economic situation improved, consumer confidence increased and the retail industry benefited.
“Although the overall trend for the sector is positive, there will always be individual retail insolvency cases, as with the clothing chain Bank Fashion.
“There is a clear pattern developing, whereby we expect to see a permanent shift away from using administration as a restructuring tool for businesses, with a greater emphasis towards constructive debtor driven solutions involving negotiations with creditors, either informally or through the use of CVAs, where in both circumstances companies will work alongside restructuring professionals.”
