Granville's insolvency a sign of things to come

The descent into administration of UK business intelligence vendor Granville Associates reawakens the spectre of insolvency for smaller software companies in the fintech space.

For the best part of the past decade, companies with a sluggish sales pipeline and cashflow problems have been able to keep themselves afloat by taking on more debt and borrowing their way out of trouble.

In today’s credit-challenged climate, easy cash is proving rather harder to come by. Last month, Experian reported an 8.5% rise in UK corporate insolvency for the first quarter of 2008 over the comparable period a year earlier. The number of businesses failing in Q1 2008, 4,798, is the highest since Q4 2006 and the second highest reported in a single quarter since Experian began recording the figures in 1997.

Smaller companies peddling ‘nice to have’ tactical solutions for financial sector clients appear particularly vulnerable. Granville’s failure could be a sign of things to come.