Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🤖 A mechanical toy 😜 A trick or tease 🔚 The ending part ⚾ Throwing motion 🏢 Closing a company
wind-up

wind-up

7.4
The formal process of closing a company and paying its debts
  • noun
  • /ˈwɪndˌʌp/
  • UK
translation icon : liquidación
  • The wind-up of the company took several months as they resolved outstanding debts and distributed assets to the creditors.

According to the new management of FTX, who are tasked with winding up the bankrupt crypto exchange.

Examples

  • The so-called direction orders were formalities that began the wind-up of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society, the two failed banks at the center of the country's financial meltdown.

    Blog text (6)

  • Legal requirements must be followed during the wind-up of a business to ensure fair treatment of all creditors.

  • After the wind-up process was completed, the remaining funds were shared among the shareholders.

Synonyms

liquidation
vswind-up
  • Specialized
15 7.3

Closing a business and selling its assets to pay debts

is a formal legal closure process focused on paying creditors
liquidation process
vswind-up
  • Specialized
5.8

Selling the things a company owns to pay its debts before it closes

is the formal process of closing and distributing assets to pay creditors

How Formal

dissolution
  • Formal
20 6.8
wind-up
  • UK
7.4
closure
46 4.7
to shut down
541 2.9

Surface Forms

wind-up singular
wind-ups plural

Morphology

wind-up = wind + up (opaque) = wind + up

Structurally derived from 'wind up' (to close), but the legal/business meaning of formally dissolving a company is specialized.

Etymology

Wind-up: The legal meaning of wind-up (closing a company) comes from the phrase wind up meaning 'to bring to an end', so to wind up a business is to finish its affairs and share what it owns.