CREDITSAFE / HALLOWEEN RESEARCH CONCEPT
The walkingdebt.
Still trading. Barely breathing.
A fictional journey into businesses kept moving by debt, while their earnings struggle to cover the cost of staying alive.
Enter the reportAll statistics are invented for this design concept.
of our fictional cohort meets the report’s illustrative zombie-company definition.
Not real Creditsafe research.
02 / THE POPULATION ALIVE ON PAPER
The lights are on.
But is anybody thriving?
In this invented cohort of 1,000 SMEs, 220 earned less in operating profit than their interest costs for three consecutive fictional years.
That is our illustrative definition of a zombie company. It does not mean every one of these businesses is insolvent.
Ask whether earnings can sustain the debt, and whether the weakness is persistent. An active company record tells only part of the story.
Each marker represents 1% of the selected segment. Groups are exclusive in this fictional model.
The overall rate masks an uneven picture. Explore the fictional sectors to see where pressure clusters.
03 / THE STRESS TEST PRESSURE CAN BUILD FAST
One shock.
A different pulse.
Meet a fictional business with £1.2 million in annual revenue, £1.08 million in operating costs and £80,000 in annual interest.
Move the slider to reduce revenue. This simple scenario holds operating costs and interest fixed.
Explore the headroom behind the headline numbers. One weak year is a warning signal; it does not establish the three-year zombie definition used here.
FICTIONAL COMPANY / ANNUAL SCENARIO
Interest covered. Headroom matters.
Operating profit covers interest 1.5 times in this model. A revenue decline of just over 3.3% would take coverage below 1× if costs stayed fixed.
Illustrative arithmetic only. No forecast of default or insolvency. Real costs, cash flows and financing arrangements vary.
04 / THE WARNING SIGNS READ THE WHOLE STORY
Don’t wait
for the credits.
Borrowing, payment behaviour and company events can tell different parts of a financial-pressure story. Explore the fictional findings.
Combine financial history with current signals. Use the evidence to ask better questions, then monitor what changes.
FICTIONAL FOLLOW-UP / ZOMBIE COHORT: 220 SMEs
Repeated late payments
In the invented follow-up, 121 zombie companies made repeated late payments. Persistent slippage could prompt a closer look at cash conversion and liquidity.
Zombie status is a research classification. Insolvency is a separate event. A strained business may recover, restructure or fail.