Big jump seen in number of UK companies in trouble

Visitors to Greenwich Park are silhouetted against the Canary Wharf financial district, in east London on September 19, 2008.

LONDON (Reuters) - The number of distressed British businesses was almost 500 percent higher in the third quarter than in the same period a year ago, corporate restructuring specialist Begbies Traynor will reveal on Monday, according to the Financial Times.

In a sign of the effect of the global financial crisis on the wider economy, 4,566 companies are facing critical problems compared with 791 in the third quarter of 2007, it said.

The 'critical problems' include County Court judgments totalling more than 5,000 pounds or actions related to business winding-up petitions.

Begbies Traynor told the paper that while housing, construction and property continued to be hit worst, other sectors were emerging with problems.

The hire and rental services sector saw a 643 percent increase in critical problems; information technology's were up 627 percent; and manufacturing's problems rose by 622 percent, it said.

(Reporting by Ben Deighton, editing by Tim Pearce)