Source: FSC

Incorporations increased slightly in the third quarter of 2022 over Q2, but they fell well short of the corresponding quarter in 2021, according to a quarterly report from the Financial Services Commission.

Q3 2022 saw a one percent increase of new incorporations compared to Q2, but a 30 percent decrease year on year.

The numbers further soured hopes that 2022 would extend a climb seen in 2021, when incorporations saw their best performance since 2018 as the sector recovered somewhat from a 20-year low in 2019 followed by another 14 percent plunge in 2020.

Though 2022 began with a steep drop from 9,809 incorporations in Q4 2021, the first quarter’s 8,075 incorporations were nevertheless up from 7,732 in Q1 2021.

However, Q2 and Q3 2022 dropped to 6,630 and 6,686, respectively, from 9,114 and 9,523 in the corresponding quarters in 2021.

This means that through the end of the third quarter, there were a total of 21,391 new incorporations for 2022, compared to 26,369 during the same period in 2021.

Active companies

Also in Q3 2022, the number of total active companies rose to 374,890 from 370,150 in the previous quarter. The total number in Q4 2021 was 368,893.

Those numbers are up from a 14-year low in 2020: Having lost 14,085 active companies between Q3 and Q4 of that year, the territory finished out 2020 with just 366,364.

In 2019, the numbers had hit the previous 13-year low of 387,344 after peaking at 481,002 in 2011.

Other numbers

Also in the third quarter of 2022, there were 77 new limited partnerships, a decrease of 27 percent compared to Q2 2022 and a 55 percent decrease compared to Q3 2021.

Cumulatively, 2,334 LPs have formed in the territory since 2017.

Additionally, the total number of new applications to register a trademark in Q4 2021 increased by 29 percent when compared to Q4 2020, with 102 partnerships formed.