(Finance) – Plastic packaging, motorway management, hydrocarbon extraction, air transport, but above all pharmaceutical specialties and raw materials. These are the sectors, with a high concentration of large companies, which have good and bad times in payments: they negotiate more advantageous conditions but still pay more late, putting medium-small companies in difficulty. That’s how i average payment times of Italian companies in the first quarter of 2023 increased by 1.6 days (from 65.2 to 66.8) compared to the first quarter of 2022, a phenomenon that has affected the whole peninsula: this result is in fact the combination of the lengthening of the average terms agreed in particular by large companies (+1.4 days) and the worsening of the days of delay of the other size classes (+0.2), a trend that resumed at the end of 2022 after a year of constant decline. This is what emerges from a recent Cerved study on the payment habits of Italian companies (agreed times, distribution of delays, non-payments).
Taking advantage of their negotiating clout, the giants managed to pay on average in 70.6 days agreed against 64.8 days last year (much more than the current 58.2 for SMEs and 43 for micro companies), to which they add 11 days of delay, while the smaller companies, which are strongly affected by this delaying policy, on the contrary see a tightening of deadlines: this translates into a lack of liquidity which leads not only to greater delays (+0.5 days compared to the first quarter of 2022) but increasingly to missed payments.
“Payment habits are an important thermometer to monitor in order to promptly catch possible warning signs – he comments Andrea Mignanelli, CEO of Cerved –. The economic situation we are going through, characterized by high inflation and rising interest rates, has generated a deterioration in the financial fundamentals of companies: the consequent drop in demand, the increase in costs, the slowdown in profitability and the exacerbation of risk have led, on the one hand, to renegotiating payment times, on the other, where this has not been possible, to increasing delays and insolvencies”.
The macro-sector that has lengthened payment times the most is industry (+4 days, from 65.9 to 69.9) and nevertheless also saw delays grow (+0.4, from 6.9 to 7.3). Also in buildings the number of days of delay increased (+1.6, from 9 to 10.6) and, against a clear shortening of deadlines (-2.3 days), the number of insolvent companies. In the services, where micro enterprises prevail, payment times are structurally shorter (from 10 to 20 days less than in construction and industry) and despite this, delays are slightly but constantly decreasing.
Stretches and delays in geographical areas and sectors – Compared to the first quarter of 2022, in the same period of 2023 the agreed payment days increased in all geographical areas (from +0.8 in the South to +1.7 in the North-West) while delays, in addition to being more substantial, increased only in the Center (+0.7) and in the South (+0.6). The share of non-payments, on the other hand, rose in all areas (from +0.2 in the North-West to +0.7 in the North-East) except in the Center (-0.2). As far as the sectors are concerned, there has been a considerable lengthening of the agreed deadlines in the energy-intensive sectors, which have been greatly affected by the sharp increase in the prices of energy and some raw materials: companies for the refining of petroleum products pay almost 80 days more than in 2022, those that produce accumulators and batteries at over 61, paper and steel companies at around 50. Delays, on the other hand, have increased more in cattle breeding ( almost 10 more days beyond the deadline), in air transport and surveillance services (about 9), in radio and TV (7.3), in the extraction of hydrocarbons and in the production of canned fish (6.5).
The distribution of non-payments – In Italy, about 1 payment out of 10 is not honored (9.7%, +0.3%): in micro and SMEs this phenomenon has risen respectively by +0.5% and +0.8%, while in large companies the share, equal to the Italian average, has remained stable. As macro-sectors, the most marked increase is seen in construction (from 12% to 13%), which also has the highest percentage of insolvencies: the lowest is in industry, 7.9% (+0.5%), services stand at 9.7% (+0.2%). From a geographical point of view, missed payments are growing in all areas – from 6.8% to 7.5% in the North East, from 8.8% to 9% in the North West, from 13.1% to 13.7% in the South – except in the Centre, from 11% to 10.8%. Compared to the sectors, those suffering the most are cattle breeding (56.4% of missed payments, +46.5% on the first quarter of 2022), the production of non-electric motors (28.2%, +12.6%), the recording industry (20%, +10.4%), advertising agencies (43.6%, +10.1%), local energy distribution (15.2%, +8.3%), publishing of newspapers and periodicals (31.4%, + 8.2%), while the railway industry performed well (18% of missed payments, -12.8% compared to the first quarter of 2022), the production of knitwear and underwear (11.8%, -12.6%), rail transport (43.%, -12.5%), car rentals (5.4%, -8.6%), paper for domestic use (3.8%, -7.1%).