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How many PLCs have overdue accounts?

Companies House
9 August 2024

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This is now replaced by our automatically-updating list of PLCs with late accounts.

Brewdog plc is six weeks late filing its accounts with Companies House:

Companies House overview page for Brewdog PLC showing overdue accounts: BREWDOG PLC Company number SC311560 Follow this company | File for this company Overview | Filing history | People | Charges | Registers | More Registered office address Brewdog, Balmacassie Commercial Park, Ellon, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, AB41 8BX Company status Active Company type Public limited Company Incorporated on 7 November 2006 Accounts overdue Next accounts made up to 31 December 2023 due by 30 June 2024 Last accounts made up to 31 December 2022 Confirmation statement Next statement date 25 November 2024 due by 9 December 2024 Last statement dated 25 November 2023 Nature of business (SIC) 11050 - Manufacture of beer

How unusual is this?

On 1 August 2024, there were 4,430 active public limited companies. Ignoring those that appear completely defunct, there were 132 that hadn’t filed on time by 1 August.

Companies House’s penalties for late filing are pretty hefty for a small business, but utterly irrelevant for a large company:

Table of late filing penalties for private companies or LLPs compared to public companies: Length of period (measured from the date the accounts are due) | Penalty for a private company or LLP | Penalty for a public company Not more than 1 month | £150 | £750 More than 1 month but not more than 3 months | £375 | £1,500 More than 3 months but not more than 6 months | £750 | £3,000 More than 6 months | £1,500 | £7,500 The penalty will be doubled if accounts are filed late in 2 successive financial years (beginning on or after 6 April 2008).

It would make sense to make the fine geared to the size of the company, e.g. with the maximum fine becoming the greater of £7,500 and 0.1% of net assets (about £150k in Brewdog’s case).

The complete list is here. Note that some of these may have filed a few days before the deadline, but Companies House hadn’t yet processed the accounts.

Many thanks to M for the idea and the coding – indeed everything.

Photo by Ales Krivec on Unsplash

Footnotes

  1. Meaning filing deadlines before 1 January 2023 ↩︎

  2. That’s a particular problem for companies who file paper accounts; for some large companies this is unavoidable, because Companies House’s systems won’t accept their accounts in electronic form. Brewdog’s very pretty accounts get printed out, sent to Companies House, scanned, and end up ugly and unsearchable (which is bad for accessibility as well as open data). I expect that is a consequence of Companies House’s limitations and not Brewdog’s fault. ↩︎

Further reading

Screenshot of the Companies House overview page for CLARITYDW LIMITED: CLARITYDW LIMITED Company Number 09792296 A Private Limited Company incorporated on 23 September 2015 Registered email address is [redacted] Change email address(link opens in a new tab) Registered office address is 53 Howard Road, Westbury Park, Bristol, England, BS6 7US Change address Get email reminders Activate eReminders Protect your company Join PROOF Current company information Request email Accounts up-to-date Next accounts made up to 30 September 2025 due by 30 June 2026 Last accounts made up to Confirmation statement up-to-date Help with confirmation statement Confirmation Statement Date 9 September 2026 Next statement to be filed by

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