大象传媒

Businesses are failing at a rate not seen for years. Anu Anand meets those dealing with the fall out and explores the role that high, as well as low, interest rates have played.

In Japan, in the 1990s, the national economy was dominated by what became known as "zombie" companies. Many thousands of previously buoyant companies became choked by rising interest rates and the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble. It led to Japan's "Lost Decade" as companies became reliant on bank support and were incapable of investing in future growth.

Are we losing so many companies in the UK now, in part because so many were kept afloat by ultra-low interest rates and easy-to-come-by debt in previous years? Did that environment allow some companies to survive past their natural lifespans? It is argued in this programme that the speedy rise in rates is now felling those companies, across many sectors, in large numbers.

Anu Anand meets business owners who have tried to keep going against the odds and are now dealing with the consequences, both financial and emotional, of a business landscape that has been suddenly altered. What do they think about what went wrong? Anu also talks to insolvency practitioners. They have rarely been busier. What lessons do they think need to be learned and what are the wider repercussions, as so many zombies fall, for growth in the UK?

Producer and presenter: Anu Anand
Executive producer: Rosamund Jones
Studio manager: Nigel Appleton
A Whistledown production for 大象传媒 Radio 4