P.R. bankruptcies down 14.5% year-over-year in Feb.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court building in Old San Juan (Credit: © Mauricio Pascual)
The island’s bankruptcy filings dropped in February, when 14.5 percent fewer cases were submitted to the court, versus the same month in 2016, according to preliminary numbers released Thursday by research company Boletín de Puerto Rico.
The data shows that a total of 795 cases were filed last month, 135 fewer petitions in comparison those presented at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Puerto Rico during the same month last year.
A total of 1,421 cases have been filed during the first two months of the year, down 13.7 percent from the same period in 2016, Boletín de Puerto Rico said.
When broken down, the report showed that Chapter 11 petitions reflected a 62.5 percent year-over-year decrease. Last month, 12 businesses sought to reorganize their finances through this type of protection, in comparison to the 20 on record for 2016. So far this year, 28 companies have filed for Chapter 11.
The majority of the cases, or 418, were filed under the Chapter 13 category, which gives individuals the chance to reorganize their finances. The total is 16.4 percent lower than the cases on file for the same month in 2016. To date, a total of 772 personal bankruptcy petitions have been submitted to the court.
Meanwhile, 365 Chapter 7, or total liquidation cases, were tallied for February. That figure is about 7.8 percent lower than those on record for February 2016. During the first two months of the year, a total of 620 such cases have been filed.
Zero farming operations filed for Chapter 12 protection, a category that is reserved exclusively for troubled agriculture businesses.
Because the numbers are preliminary, there were no totals for the debt associated with the cases on record.
