During the summer period and the first month of the autumn, the pace of SE establishments – in other countries than the Czech Republic – slowed down. As of 1 October 2012, a total of 1,426 registered SEs were listed in the ECDB.

Facts in brief since the previous SE News:

• New companies: 6 normal, 2 empty/micro and 137 UFOs (total: 145 new SEs).
• The Czech practice of ‘SE mass production’ is continuing (more than a hundred new SEs within four months). The total number of SEs in the Czech Republic is now 901.
• 3 companies moved their registered office from one EEA country to another.
• 4 companies were deregistered from national registers (for example, due to bankruptcy) and one transformed into a national legal form.
• No SE establishments in new countries. As before, 25 European countries host European Companies (Bulgaria, Greece, Iceland, Romania, Slovenia still host none).
• In addition to the already registered companies, the ECDB currently provides information on 15 planned SEs (only two new planned SEs on the list).

In terms of current distribution, the situation did not change a lot: less than one-seventh of the SEs today have been identified by the ECDB as having more than five employees. In practice, however, the number of normal SEs might be significantly higher as a consequence of the persisting gap in employment information caused by insufficient publication rules in the SE legislation. By far the most SEs have been set up by way of a subsidiary and had no employees at the moment of founding. For many, after the so-called activation process – when a company is sold or /and ‘activated’ by shareholders – this is likely to have changed in the meantime.

The following table summarises the 1 June 2012 and 1 October 2012 figures: