Serial bankrupt (konkursrytter)
Also known as serial bankruptcy, straw-man company, front company, serie-konkurs, stråmandsselskab
A serial bankrupt is a person who repeatedly sets up companies, lets them go bankrupt, and leaves the creditors with the loss.
In practice
The serial bankrupt is not an unlucky entrepreneur — it is a business model. The company is incorporated, the goods are bought on credit, and the company is closed down before the bills fall due.
The defence is banal, but it only works if you actually do it: look up the management, not just the company. A brand-new ApS (Danish private limited company) with no track record is not in itself a warning sign. A brand-new ApS with a director who has four bankruptcies behind him is.
Where it commonly goes wrong
- The company is credit-assessed, but not the people behind it. The company is new and clean. That is the entire point of it.