Dive Brief:

• The total number of larger U.S. corporate bankruptcy petitions filed this year through June rose to 371, up about 11% from 335 in the year-earlier period, according to a report from S&P Global, which tracked companies with public debt and assets or liabilities of at least $2 million and/or liabilities of at least $10 million at the time of filing. 
• That volume is the highest for the first half of the year since 2010, which saw 468 petitions, and signals that 2025 could be one of the busiest years for bankruptcy filings in over a decade, according to the report. 
• “Corporate liquidity has largely worsened in 2025 as debt levels for many companies have risen and the U.S. Federal Reserve is poised to hold benchmark interest rates at their current level through the summer. Consumer spending, meanwhile, is straining under the weight of a cooling job market, inflation still above monetary policymakers' targets and the Trump administration's tariffs,” S&P states in the report.

Dive Insight:

Finance leaders of the companies tracked by S&P have been increasingly turning to the courts for bankruptcy protection since 2022 when interest rates began to rise as the Federal Reserve sought to combat inflation. They’ve risen from 373 in 2022 to 634 in 2023, touching 688 last year. 

So far this year, the distress has been concentrated in industrial and so-called consumer discretionary companies which accounted for a combined 107 bankruptcies, followed by healthcare firms (27) and corporations in the consumer staples sector (19). 

Among the largest firms to file bankruptcy petitions so far this year were craft retailer Joann, which listed debt of about $2.4 billion and assets of approximately $2.2 billion, and semiconductor manufacturer Wolfspeed, reporting approximately $6.7 billion in total funded debt as of its Chapter 11 filing on June 30. Just one week after the filing, Wolfspeed appointed industry alum Gregor van Issum to take the finance reins, CFO Dive previously reported.