Many Businesses Are Taking Longer To Pay Their Bills
NEW YORK -- Many businesses are taking longer to pay their bills, a sign they aren't convinced that economic recovery is at hand.</br></br>For the third quarter in a row, a Dun & Bradstreet Information Services survey shows worsened bill-paying performance. Those three quarters follow five quarters of steady or improving behavior, according to the survey, which is to be released today.</br></br>"Businesses are concerned about the recovery, and sometimes that means `I'm not going to pay as quickly as I have to,'" said Frank Lourenso, a Chemical Bank executive vice president in charge of the middle-market banking group. "People are trying to stay as liquid as possible."</br></br>D&B's quarterly survey is based on payment records of one million companies as reported by their suppliers to Dun & Bradstreet Corp. The survey compares the length of time it takes companies to pay their bills relative to the year-earlier period.</br></br>For the three months ended Sept. 30, the survey found that the number of companies taking longer to pay their bills exceeded the number paying more promptly by 7.2%. In the second quarter, the number of cash-hoarding companies exceeded the number of faster-paying companies by 6.2%.