Coca-Cola UK, Formula One Marketing, and Reckitt all rank among the “rogues gallery” of slowest payers of invoices by small businesses in Britain. They take an average of 110 days to settle their bills.
Good Business Pays (which campaigns for fairer treatment of vendors) analysed more than 5,000 public filings to identify late and slow payers.
The findings are coming just weeks before the government implements new measures to combat the issue . This includes giving the Small Business Commissioner more power to investigate late payment.
Businesses bidding on government contracts exceeding £5 million must demonstrate that they have paid their invoices in an average time of 55 days.
Craig Beaumont from the Federation of Small Businesses said, “These companies are among the worst of British business and form a rogues gallery of people who pay their small businesses later, or are serial late payers.”
Since payment reporting became a legal requirement in 2017, more than 90 companies appear on the watch list for late payments each year, making them serial late payers.
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (which includes a British operation) reported a average time for payment 110 days. Reckitt’s consumer goods group, which owns brands such as Dettol, Nurofen and others, took 125 business days to pay its suppliers. Formula One Marketing, which is a subsidiary company of Formula One Group paid its invoices within 124 days.
Reckitt, a manufacturer of household brands, says it follows a “standard approach globally to payment terms”.
Liz Barclay said that the payment terms were “grossly unjust” to small businesses, and “added salt to an already fatal wound”. Liz Barclay, the small business commissioner, said that payment lengths were “grossly unfair” for small businesses and “added salt to an already fatal wound”.
AB InBev UK was among the slowest payers. The group owns brands such as Budweiser and Beck’s, and paid its invoices on average in 116 days. Mondelez UK Confectionery (the owner of Cadbury) left small businesses waiting for 102 days to receive payment.
Formula One issued a statement saying: “It’s not true that Formula 1 pays slowly.” The settlement period has no significance because more than two-thirds of the payments made in the period under consideration were made to Formula 1 subsidiaries.
Reckitt’s spokesperson said: “We offer flexibility to our smaller suppliers where possible and have a global standard approach when it comes to payment terms.”
Coca-Cola Europacific Partner Services has not responded to any requests for comments.
Beaumont says that delays in payments to small business have a negative impact on the economy. “We believe [late or slowly paid payments] would remove £2.5 billion in GDP from the economy, saving 50,000 small business every year.
If you stopped small businesses from having to chase their invoices, and if they didn’t worry about their fluctuating monthly income because they don’t know if their biggest customer will pay or not, then you’d increase efficiency, as well as make it better to be a small-business owner.
Since the last report in August 2023 there has been an increase of 20% in the number of companies reporting payment times longer than 80.
There have been positive changes. Nineteen previously listed companies are no longer included on the list. YouGov (the polling company) used to take 126 days before paying suppliers. Public filings show that this was reduced to 47 in the last financial quarter.
Manufacturing is the sector where more than half of companies who take over 100 days to pay their suppliers.
Labour Party spokesman said: “For far too long, smaller businesses have suffered as a result when some larger firms get away with underpaying suppliers. The scourge late payments could be tackled to put money back in the pockets of small traders at a time where many are struggling with increasing costs.
We also contacted the other companies that were named as slow payers to get their comments.