Eight companies a day failed during February

More than 200 companies went to the wall in February, equating to an average of eight business failures per day.

The figure also suggests that more companies could be in danger of failing this year compared to last.

Latest monthly data from business intelligence service, Vision-net, said that the 206 instances of companies collapsing — either entering receivership, examinership or being liquidated — was up by 16% on a year-on-year basis. The central figure for February is also well up on the average failure rate for 2011 of 170 per month. That said, January actually saw a 19% year-on-year fall in failures, with 121 companies collapsing that month.