The Chancellor’s Budget has raised much discussion and controversy around the state of UK business.
We’ve gathered data from all businesses in the UK from 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Our data, which comes from Companies House, shows the total net worth, assets, liabilities and cash-in-bank across the total number of UK active businesses; we have surmised the equity by calculating assets minus liabilities. The results are shown below.
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Cash in bank in decline
Year on year data shows a reduction in the total amount of cash in UK businesses, dropping by £620 billion between 2013 and 2014 to £2.5 trillion (averaging £313,575.29 per business in the UK).
Whilst this at first appears a negative, the reality is that investment in business growth usually requires cash be taken from the business, to purchase hardware or invest in people or training. Are UK businesses investing more in their growth and less focused on their cash reserves as we move further away from the recession?
Liabilities in UK businesses down year on year
In line with this comes the finding that liabilities in UK businesses are also down, dropping on average by £1,353,466.47 from 2013 to 2014. Liabilities are often considered negatives in a business, potential risks to financial security; as cash dwindles and liabilities drop, are we seeing UK businesses investing in getting out of debt?
Assets and net worth
With these positive stories does come a slightly negative slant to our story, as Company Check’s data also shows a decrease in assets and net worth across UK businesses.
The average assets in UK businesses are down by £1,760,317.20 from 2013 to 2014, and net worth has dropped by £395,410.76 on average. That said, as with all of this data, there may be two sides to the coin, whereby the mix of large to small businesses has changed over time with new business incorporations, thus shifting the balance of net worth and assets too.
Data Sources
This data was extracted from Company Check, which gathers its data from Companies House. The data shows averages for each voting constituency; find a list of constituencies included here: Constituencies Used in UK PLC Data – Company Check – Sheet1.
Total figures were taken by finding the average of all of the averages and then comparing those year on year.
To obtain the full data set, please email pr@companycheck.co.uk. The infographic above can be embedded into your own site using the code below; please credit www.companycheck.co.uk when you use it.
For further information or assets, please email pr@companycheck.co.uk.
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