BANKRUPTCY FILINGS SINKING AS ECONOMY GETS BETTER

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 9, 1993                   TAG: 9304090167
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
BANKRUPTCY FILINGS SINKING AS ECONOMY GETS BETTER
As the economy has slowly turned up, bankruptcy filings in the Western District of Virginia have dropped rapidly.
Petitions seeking Bankruptcy Court protection are down 20 percent in the first quarter over a year earlier, court officials reported Thursday.
After bankruptcies peaked in 1991, a downward trend has continued "at a precipitous pace," said District Court Clerk John W.L. Craig.
Based on past filing patterns, Craig on Thursday predicted the number of petitions will drop by 10 percent this year.
In the first quarter, filings were down 20 percent to 1,445 from 1,804 a year ago. However, the court's load remained more than double the volume of bankruptcy petitions filed each year in the early 1990s.
Most districts of the country are reporting lower bankruptcy volume, said Edward Flynn of the U.S. Courts Administrative Office in Washington.
One reason, he said, is the lower cost of carrying debt, stemming from lower interest rates. "People are refinancing a lot of debt or paying it off," Flynn said.
Some rapid increases in the East and Northeast raised national bankruptcy levels two years ago by as much as 50 to 60 percent, he said. Those rates of increase have leveled off while the number of new petitions has declined in the central part of the country, Flynn said.
Staffs of some court clerks were enlarged to handle increasing loads of a few years ago and now may be reduced through attrition, he said.
The Western Virginia court reported that while the number of petitions from individuals was down, the number of filings by businesses increased by 0.3 percent.
Business petitions dropped 8 percent in the Roanoke division, while the number in the Lynchburg division rose 32 percent. Harrisonburg had an increase of 3 percent.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB