This page contains an automatically-updated list of every public limited company that’s missed the deadline for filing its statutory accounts.1Companies House’s penalties for late filing are pretty hefty for a small business, but utterly irrelevant for a large company. In theory failure to file is a criminal offence, but it’s very rarely prosecuted. Listed companies are highlighted in yellow.2Most PLCs aren’t listed. So why become a PLC? Perhaps because you’re planning to get a listing at some point. Perhaps you want to offer securities to some of the public, without a listing. Perhaps you just like the cachet of having “PLC” in your name. But it comes with a somewhat higher level of compliance obligations.
You can click on each column to sort it, and click on a company name to jump to its Companies House entry.
Note that some of the companies may have filed a few days before the deadline, but Companies House hasn’t yet processed the accounts.3That’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. And this gets worse around year end/Christmas. However any company that files close to the deadline is asking for trouble; it’s notable that well run companies don’t do this, and to our knowledge no FTSE 100 company has ever been late filing its accounts.4The companies that are many years in default are strange “zombies” which were dissolved, and then restored to the register – I don’t know what’s going on there.
The list is generated by a script that runs at 2am every Monday morning.5But occasionally more frequently
The code is available on our GitHub. Thanks to M for original idea and original coding, and to Companies House for the API which enables all this.
Image by DALL-E 2: “a late alarm clock”.
Tax Policy Associates provides this list as a useful tool but accepts no responsibility for any errors; if a company’s filings are important to you, please check directly with Companies House.
- 1Companies House’s penalties for late filing are pretty hefty for a small business, but utterly irrelevant for a large company. In theory failure to file is a criminal offence, but it’s very rarely prosecuted.
- 2Most PLCs aren’t listed. So why become a PLC? Perhaps because you’re planning to get a listing at some point. Perhaps you want to offer securities to some of the public, without a listing. Perhaps you just like the cachet of having “PLC” in your name. But it comes with a somewhat higher level of compliance obligations.
- 3That’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. And this gets worse around year end/Christmas. However any company that files close to the deadline is asking for trouble; it’s notable that well run companies don’t do this, and to our knowledge no FTSE 100 company has ever been late filing its accounts.
- 4The companies that are many years in default are strange “zombies” which were dissolved, and then restored to the register – I don’t know what’s going on there.
- 5But occasionally more frequently
5 responses to “Every PLC that’s failed to file accounts on time”
I’ve been doing some research on a particular sector and came across a Company that has had no directors / officers since 31st December 2023!
How is it that Companies House allow this to happen?
By the way, Rush FM Limited, Company number 10902229, is the company in question.
Are you able to run a programme that pulls out companies that have no directors? I’d be fascinated to know how common this is.
Thanks as always.
Can you indicate or suggest why the ones at the bottom of the list ( e.g. James Balfour plc) haven’t been struck off, given they are decades late?
I’m not sure – they were wound up, and then restored to the register for some reason. I don’t know why. I would exclude them if there was a clear basis for doing so, but I’m reluctant to just delete companies.
Thanks – great suggestion… listed companies are now highlighted in yellow
Dan,
A couple of things it might be helpful to be aware of.
1. For a main market listed company under 4.1.3R they have to file their accounts within 4 months of year end with the national storage mechanism. If they don’t then their shares are normally suspended from trading which would be a huge issue. So it’s very difficult to have a big company that misses 6 month deadline.
2. It would be interestingly to see how many of these companies have shares that are listed a few are AIM companies that do have shares suspended, as this happens at 6 months, ADM energy is one such company I recognise from your list.