The number of corporate bankruptcies fell 5.4 percent in August from a year earlier to 1,612, private research institute Teikoku Databank Ltd. said Friday.

This marked the second straight month of decline but remained the third highest reading for the month of August since the end of World War II, the institute said.

The amount of liabilities left behind plunged 46.6 percent to 735.45 billion yen.

Despite remaining below 1 trillion yen, this was still the seventh highest for an August since the war.

The data covered bankruptcies involving liabilities of 10 million yen or more.

There were 14 large-scale bankruptcies with liabilities of 10 billion yen or more in the reporting month and no bankruptcies with liabilities of 100 billion yen or more.

"The number of bankruptcies is likely to stay high in September through the end of this year," said Teikoku Databank, citing expected failures by midsize and smaller businesses.

due to the discontinuation of financial aid from banks that are also struggling to survive.

Of the total 1,612 bankruptcies, recession-induced failures or those caused by poor sales and exports and an increase in nonperforming assets totaled 1,256. The ratio came to 77.9 percent.

The number of employees at the 1,612 firms that failed in August came to 13,690, exceeding 10,000 for the 20th consecutive month, Teikoku Databank said.

In August, failures of established companies that had been operating for 30 years or more stood at 399 cases, accounting for 24.8 percent of the total.

By industry, bankruptcies fell from year-earlier levels in all industries apart from transport and telecommunications.