“When YFM first backed them, these six businesses had a combined market value of £40m, employed 500 people and had a UK only customer base. Now they are worth in excess of  £900 million, employ over 2,500  people and operate all over the world. It has been incredibly rewarding to work with such diverse successful businesses. They have innovated, developed and adapted their products, services and businesses achieving transformational growth.”  says David Hall, Managing Director YFM Private Equity.

DXS, Nanoco, Hargreaves, Byotrol, Art Technology Group and Provexis were all early stage investments backed by YFM Group managed funds between 2003 and 2005. All but Hargreaves are innovative technology companies, demonstrating the high growth and strong performance of their products, services and management team.

Provexis discovers, develops and licenses scientifically-proven technologies for the global functional food, medical food and dietary supplement sectors.

Start-up nano-technology company Nanoco floated on AIM in April 2009 at a market capitalisation in excess of £35m, the share price has since increased significantly since the listing.
 
Manchester based personalised medicine company DXS was sold to international sample and assay technology giant Qiagen. The value of the business had increased 11 fold since the initial investment by YFM managed North West Business Investment Scheme and British Smaller Technology Companies VCT2.
 
Byotrol has seen sales grow thanks to the increasing awareness of swine flu prevention. The manufacturer of anti-bacterial chemicals used in the fight against super bugs has seen sales increase from £200,000 to £1.5m in the last six months.

Mineral resource management company Hargreaves employs over 2,200 staff and with turnover in excess of £400m, they are a perfect example of a company growing both organically and via acquisition. 

Art Technology Group is the premier provider of personalised cross-channel commerce software and services, working with more than 900 of the world’s leading brands.

David Hall says “YFM Group works with hundreds of entrepreneurs each year. We are in a privileged position of seeing the knock-on effect of such success, as the local and national economy benefits from the creation of jobs, inward investment to the region and increases in sales and wealth.”

In the last 12 months YFM Group has made investments into 95 companies across the UK worth £110m.

Contributed by YFM Group - The Small company investment specialist with over 20 years of investment business development.

Invoice finance, including invoice discounting and factoring, is a proven way to grow your business. This funny, Alan Partridge style Fast Finance Guide from SME Invoice Finance introduces business owners to invoice discounting and factoring to improve cash flow. In this comedy video, the Alan Partridge character answers your question: How does Invoice Discounting or Factoring work?

As you’ll see from the video, it’s a lighthearted way to tackle a fairly ‘heavy’ subject and to introduce businesses to invoice finance. Making the service more widely accessible to owner-managed businesses is critical to the future success of small businesses in the UK.

Please feel free to forward the link below to your friends, colleagues or anyone else you think might enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofYpLG4-gvQ

Click here to to watch the SME Fast Finance Guide

Contributed by SME Invoice Finance

This often happens automatically to let web sites identify and monitor computer usage, including tracking future activity after the user visits the site.

This was publicised recently in respect of Facebook’s targeted behavioural advertising. For example, saucepan adverts can be displayed if employees look up these on ebay after their visit to Facebook. The issue is that your employees may use an internet browser for client work or file management systems and confidential information may also be compromised. In the financial industry, this may lead to compliance issues and compromise a business’s integrity.

’Cookies’ that leave a mark of computer activity for specific websites  can cause negative publicity or embarrassment if inappropriate statements have been made, games accessed or files stored, downloaded or forwarded. Such actions may also amount to an offence if, for example, the material is pornographic in nature which in turn could cause liability for businesses if carried out on an employer’s computer.

A number of practical solutions have been tried but some financial businesses  have been finding that web filters are ineffective and counterproductive to their productivity. For many the solution has been to communicate clear policies which prohibit and list social networking websites in an effort to drive an understanding of the seriousness of their use and the risks to the business. This is not usually a complete list, but instead a framework of what is not permitted,

e.g. – ‘employees should not use work computers on sites such as Bebo, Facebook, online gambling or any material which could, in any way, be regarded as illegal, offensive, in bad taste or immoral.’

The wording is important, as not all content which is legal will be in good taste.

A good ‘catch all’ to prevent breaches or misunderstandings of the policy would be something along the lines of,

‘If you might be offended by the contents of a web page, or if made public, your access or viewing of any internet material may be  of embarrassment to you or us, then your viewing or access of the material is in breach of this policy and will constitute misconduct. In these circumstances the disciplinary policy will apply and you will be required to delete the offending post or material. ’

This sort of wording would allow for some use of the internet, without reducing your protection.

For financial businesses, reputation is important. Regardless of company blogs and wikis, many employers are now stating that unless permission has been agreed in advance, employees may not use their computers to participate in internet chat rooms, post messages on any internet message boards or use blogs or wikis, even in their own time.

Most businesses still want to allow some level of incidental internet use to avoid being seen as overly draconian, and are starting to find that behavioural guidelines are useful to add to their internet policies, such as,

‘Use must be minimal, out of office hours, not interfere with work, posts or emails should be labeled personal, not commit us to any costs, be in keeping with equal opportunities, data protection and confidentiality policies etc.’

Policies also need to provide for the possibility that internet use will be monitored and permissions may be revoked at the employer’s absolute discretion if inappropriate.

This article illustrates that precise policy wording is crucial and we hope that it triggers a conversation amongst those readers who could be affected.  However this advice is in nature  general, and is not comprehensive or a substitute for specialist legal advice.

Article contributed by John Friend, Employment and Commercial Solicitor

ACUMEN BUSINESS LAW is an award winning, innovative and dynamic Law Firm, providing legal services in a way different to other law firms.

Image copyright: Flickr

This year’s Sabin award went to director for The Bankruptcy Advisory Service, Gill Hankey, who has worked tirelessly to offer help and assistance to debtors in financial trouble, having established The Bankruptcy Advisory Service in 1997, and for many years was involved in running an independent advice service covering debt and bankruptcy.

Host Ed Byrne delighted the crowd with his witty humour and take on the industry, and guests partied until the early hours.

Visit the winners page now!

Begbies latest Red Flag report focussing on Q3 2009 contains the following headlines:

• Statistics from recessions over the past 40 years confirm that insolvencies peak between one and two years after GDP stops shrinking; scarce credit after this recession may intensify this effect, causing a substantial rise in insolvencies during 2010 and into 2011.
• The number of companies with significant and critical financial problems has fallen in absolute terms both year on year and quarter on quarter, principally reflecting the impact of HMRCs Business Payment Support Service, which has seen more than 215,000 companies defer payment of 3.79bn in tax liabilities.
• The fall in adverse actions against companies this quarter is, to some extent, symptomatic of increasing credit availability and growing business confidence, although adverse actions typically fall in this quarter as key sectors such as leisure enjoy their strongest quarter, and the holiday season both slows enforcement activity by creditors and eases cash flow pressures. This easing of corporate stress is reflected in the ICAEWs latest Business Confidence Monitor in which the Confidence Index has risen from -45.3 in Q1 to +4.8 in Q3, a level not seen since Q3 2007.
• Evidence is mounting that we maybe at the mid-point of a W shaped recession, with a deluge of business failures likely in 2010. Similarities can be drawn with the recession of the early 1980s which also saw a temporary rise in business confidence in 1981 before rapidly deteriorating in 1982.
• Sectors most impacted by adverse actions in Q3 2009 were Engineering and Recruitment, with Critical actions up 31% and 12% respectively on last year. Engineering companies form a large part of supply chains to major manufacturing operations and industrial projects, so they are most vulnerable in the current climate. The Recruitment sector is a victim of rising unemployment, which typically continues and peaks well after the end of GDP shrinkage

Red Flag Alert looks at information daily and compares detrimental data monthly, quarterly and annually, categorised as either Significant or Critical. The experience of Begbies Traynor is that a significant number of those companies with such financial problems tend to subsequently enter into a formal insolvency procedure within a year.

Ric Traynor, Executive Chairman of Begbies Traynor Group, said:

“The third quarter Red Flag Alert statistics demonstrate that the UK maybe in the eye of the storm. The well-intentioned government efforts to prop up struggling companies may provide a necessary lifeline in the short-term, but will ultimately prove futile in many cases. Both banks and trade creditors are also holding off wherever possible in the hope that business fortunes may improve, but Begbies Traynor supports the view of many leading economists that the UK is currently at the midpoint of a W shaped recession.

“Despite the recent UK stock market rally, private equity groups remain on the sidelines, with recently reported UK deals in the third quarter being at their lowest level for 25 years, a clear indication that they believe that the worst is not yet behind us.

“There is every reason to suggest that the unemployment and insolvency peaks of this recession remain some way off. Experience of the last four recessions tells us that unemployment levels and corporate and personal insolvencies are lagging indicators, and thus seem certain to rise in 2010.”

This article comes from Insolvency News, the leading news site for the insolvency profession. 

You can sign up for the free Insolvency News Weekly Briefing at http://www.insolvencynews.com/site/subscribe

Based within Coutts headquarters at 440 Strand, the Coutts Commercial Banking team is 100 people strong. The division is headed by Chris Dos Santos, who says:

‘As one of the UK’s leading private banks and wealth managers, Coutts has a long history of managing the affairs of people with complicated financial needs. Many Coutts clients have created their wealth through their business activities, whether that is as an investor, owner manager, or partner in a professional firm. Throughout our history, as well as helping them with their personal affairs, we have also offered the required services and products for their businesses’.

In the early 1990s, Coutts identified that its Commercial business had grown to such a size that it should be managed as a separate business. Coutts Commercial structured itself on sector lines, recognising that added value was delivered to the client by offering not just expertise in banking matters generally, but by ensuring that its Commercial Bankers understood the sector of business in which the individual clients operated.

Coutts was one of the first banks to offer this approach to the market, with the early sectors covered being:

• Media  - music, TV, film, theatre & arts, advertising and publishing.
• Professional Practices – legal, accountancy, financial services and latterly private equity and hedge funds.
• Commercial property.
• Charities and not-for-profit organisations.

Since the early 1990s, Coutts sector expertise has grown, with managers now specialising in the following additional areas:

• Healthcare.
• Insurance.
• Education.
• Premium retail.    

Chris adds ‘For many Coutts private clients, the most significant part of their wealth is tied up in their businesses. It was, therefore, natural for Coutts to offer commercial banking services as part of its holistic approach to wealth management. These days, Coutts Commercial does bank businesses, from £1m turnover concerns up to large, international corporates, where there may be no existing private client connection. However, these businesses appreciate the quality of service we provide and understand the long-term benefits of our relationship approach, as opposed to the rather transactional market environment that became so prevalent prior to the credit crunch. Obviously one of our core aims remains to offer the shareholders and managers of these businesses access to the personal services for which Coutts is well known, but our Commercial Banking service is more than capable to compete on a standalone basis’.

Article submitted by Coutts & Co - Private and Commercial Banking

At an Access To Finance round table organised by the Birmingham Post, a consensus emerged among representatives from the world of banking, small business, venture capital and the public sector that the funding landscape was beginning to look more positive, although businesses still needed to be realistic about their expectations.

The event brought together Ben Bolt, investment director at Catapult Venture Managers, Patrick Palmer, head of access to finance at Advantage West Midlands, Steve Walker, chief executive of community development finance institution ART, Denise Craig, West Midlands policy manager at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and Simon Woodcock, business development director Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance and was chaired by Birmingham Post head of business Alun Thorne.

Ms Craig said access to funding seemed to be slowly easing for the organisation’s members. She explained: “In the last couple of years it’s been really bad. We started to notice problems long before the big “R word” started to be used.

‘‘From a smaller business perspective, there’s a sense that all the risk has been on them. Small businessmen have got to risk their homes as well, even when there is some equity in the business. That’s when they get a bit antsy about it.

“But in the last three months, things have been becoming a little less gloomy. There are signs of cause for optimism.”

Mr Palmer of AWM said banks were simply showing the same level of caution that owners of small businesses were demonstrating in the light of the downturn.

He said: “For the manager running their own business, they are being pretty selective about who they do business with.

‘‘Banks are also being selective and businesses need to think “what information do I need to give to make sure they want to do business with me?”

Simon Woodcock of Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance said the key difference in the current climate was that banks were taking longer to consider all the elements of the deal.

He said: “We are probably looking a little bit more closely at what would happen if everything went wrong and what our exit would be. Deals are probably taking a good 20 to 30 per cent longer.”

He highlighted two contrasting approaches that could decide whether businesses get funding or not.

“Businesses that are successful in getting funding have got systems in place, have got management information and the ability to put forecasts together and the common theme is they have taken good advice,” said Mr Woodcock.

“They have gone to the accountants, to lawyers, to Business Link.

‘‘The ones that aren’t are coming with very little business planning and very little thought on what they are going to use the money for.”

Mr Walker of ART said businesses hoping to access finance needed to break away from the expectation that money will come from just one source. “Individuals have to have a package of finance, be it banks, friends and family, ART - it’s a whole package of finance, not just one,” he added. “We are definitely seeing an appetite among the banks who are saying they want to partner with us to do the deals so they can help the business as they don’t want to take all of the risk.

‘‘Also, people have to be more realistic - interest rates are considerably higher than they were”

He added: “If you have a viable proposition, the money should be there. It might come from different packages of sources, but the money is there.”

Mr Bolt agreed that owner managers have to look to different sources of finance, many of which could be more expensive than they had previously been used to.

He pointed to what he called a “Mexican stand-off” between banks, venture capitals and owner-managers which resulted from differences in expectations from a deal.

“Banks are putting forward their propositions, venture capitals putting forward theirs and owner managers are not taking it,” he said. “There are businesses that are developing unique products and it’s in this area that businesses are having difficulties in raising money from the banks, as opposed to venture capital who clearly have a higher cost.

“The reason for that is that markets are volatile and therefore forecasting becomes difficult.

‘‘Everybody is waiting for the bottom of the market.”

He agreed with Mr Walker that businesses needed to consider looking for a package of funding from different sources.

“In order to get the full amount of finance, you have to get a package and that means banks and more expensive finance such as venture capital. The business has to ask ‘do we want to stand still or do we want to capitalise on growth opportunities?’.

“It is a new world where they need to fund that in a different way.”

Mr Palmer agreed that the way the world of finance has changed so quickly took many by surprise.

“That new world came in extremely quickly. I hope we are getting near to that stage where we are bouncing along the bottom,” he said.

Ms Craig said owners of smaller businesses often found it difficult to get their heads around the changing funding landscape, especially when they were concerned with the day-to-day running of a business and surviving in a recession marketplace.

“It’s the owner managers that have to grapple with all this new systems and they have the same 24 hours in a day as anyone else. It’s changing so quickly,” he admitted. “But, on an optimistic note, they can take decisions more quickly.”

Contributed by Kieran Kelly, Commercial Development Manager - Straight Finance is one of the UK’s fastest growing independent business consultancies dedicated to serving the needs of small and medium sized businesses. It is a multi skilled organisation supplying an extensive range of innovative and bespoke support services to all types of businesses. Delivering business finance is at the core of what Straight Business Solutions does, but this is now just one aspect of what is offered.

Image copyright: Flickr

Taken as a whole, 2009 has ushered in far more business closures than fresh starts. In recent weeks, however, two high-profile moves have put well-respected business builders in the enviable – if daunting – position of putting together a brand new asset finance business.

The first is Richard Briscoe, formerly of Arkle Finance, who at the time of writing had just walked into his new office, situated in the grounds of Castle Ashby, Northampton.

He is there to build a business under the banner of Close Asset Finance, which he will take to the market as Close Business Finance, a unit of the group’s overall lending operation.

The objective, says Briscoe, is to create something very much along the lines of Arkle precursor Weatherbys Finance, which he created from scratch in 2002. Essentially, this will mean a broker-led operation with a focus on ‘soft’ assets such as catering equipment and shop and office fittings, concentrating on ticket sizes between £5,000 (€5,500) and £50,000.

The strategic resources that the new business can draw on will be more extensive than those that were available to Briscoe when building Weatherbys – the Close Asset Finance group already runs a number of finance companies with gross receivables in excess of £800 million, and has been in the leasing business for 22 years.

Weatherbys was not his first experience with growing a business. In 1994, he began his career with independent lender Broadcastle, as assistant to the company’s chief executive.

According to Briscoe, this period of his career acted as a kind of apprenticeship in how to run and develop an asset finance company. He became head of underwriting during his eight-year tenure, and saw the business grow considerably. In fact, three years after his departure for Weatherbys, Broadcastle was bought by German manufacturer Siemens for £41.5 million.

Briscoe will bring more than experience to the new venture: some of the brokers that Close Business Finance will inherit as introducers have been trusted sources for business since his earliest days at Broadcastle.

Although he stresses that he will have his eye very much more on quality then on quantity of business, Briscoe anticipates lending £15 million-£18 million in CBF’s first year. In two years, he hopes to have doubled the amount being lent, and have around 12 staff in his office – but for now, he will have to make do with setting up the phone system.

Elsewhere in UK banking, George Ashworth has an awful lot of work on his plate – but he sounds more than happy with the prospect.

No small wonder – he has just moved from a senior international vendor services role within the troubled Belgo Dutch operation Fortis Lease, where he headed up international vendor business, to the position of head of asset finance at brand new bank Aldermore.

Aldermore, owned by private equity house AnaCap, plans to grow a flourishing asset finance and leasing business from the portfolio of pre-buyout incarnation Ruffler Bank, which specialised in financing coin-operated machines.

AnaCap bought Ruffler Bank earlier this year, and combined it with other acquisition Base Commercial Mortgages to create the new lender.

According to Ashworth, the direction that Aldermore will take is not set in stone: “Keeping our options open is important as there are plenty of opportunities”. That said, “the main objective for the asset finance business”, he stresses, “is to support the bank’s overall ambition to be the UK’s number one SME lender of choice”.

Ashworth advises that there will be a focus on funding ‘hard’, tangible assets of easily determinable value, with potential for longevity. He also hinted the funding model behind the successful Ruffler coin-op business might well be applied to other sectors.

Much like Briscoe’s new business, Aldermore will also be making good use of broker introductions as it gets running – it is already benefitting from AnaCap sibling Syscap, in which it has a sizeable equity stake, as a source of good quality IT business.

Beyond that, the bank’s distribution strategy, much like its asset focus, is undecided. Ashworth is weighing up the options, but feels that, for now at least, his immediate past experience of the vendor sector will be given a rest.

More immediately useful might be his experience as operations director for Lombard, a role he took on in 2000 before going on to head up the lessor’s sales and then business development functions.

Ashworth is not suggesting that Aldermore has growth ambitions on the scale of the RBS-owned colossus – like Briscoe, he underlines the importance of writing good rather than plentiful business – but he doesn’t deny that his past responsibilities have given him a good eye for putting together a robust model for volume lending.

First on the agenda is a new IT infrastructure. Phase I is due to be complete at the end of October, laying the foundations for Phase II to be prepared for Q2 next year. “Aldermore will then be well placed to handle a number of product offerings on a scalable basis.” says Ashworth.

People also feature prominently. Aldermore is looking to recruit a number of staff, with a new business development position in the North West and a credit risk function position currently under offer.

Ashworth is keen to recruit personnel with experience of every stage of the transactional process, since Aldermore’s business model is still evolving: “We are looking to recruit people incrementally who can add value both in our initial setting up phase and thereafter”, he says.

In any case, he says, by Christmas, the new asset finance unit will have a small but professional team in place, capable of writing business with the IT and business process infrastructure that has been completed by that point. Come Spring 2010, it looks as if Ashworth will be ready to begin lending in earnest.

Contributed by Fred Crawley - Reporter, Leasing Life & Motor Finance - Leasing Life

Image copyright: Flickr

Bridging Finance (NW) Ltd is the only private principal lender on Merseyside and launched its 20 million Short Term Business Finance fund in April 2009.

Steve Barber, director of Bridging Finance (NW) Ltd, said: The greatest increase in enquires has come as a result of distressed property sales requiring fast funding. Since January, property prices have been showing good value when measured on rental returns, but it wasnt until the summer that we saw the first major wave of new investors enter the fray.

This is a clear sign that investors, disillusioned with poor savings rates and heavy losses on other investments, are effectively calling the bottom of the market and attempting to capitalise on property bargains.

This, combined with the fact that average completion time for a commercial mortage has risen to 150 days, from just 85 days in 2007, means more property professionals to seek bridging finance to plug the gap.

The Short Term Business Finance Fund offers loans of between 30,000 and 500,000 secured against commercial and residential property.

One of the quickest and simplest ways of drawing down capital, bridging loans are traditionally used for a variety of purposes including: purchasing properties at auction, funding refurbishments, funding management buyouts and acquisitions as well as raising capital for cash flow injections, tax liabilities and stock purchases.

Steve Barber, Managing Director of Bridging Finance (NW) Ltd.

Based in Wallasey, Bridging Finance (NW) Ltd. was established by former management consultant Steve Barber in 2005 and has since arranged more than 40 million of bridging and development loans across the North West and North Wales.

Image copyright: Flickr

Held in the Drapers’ Hall in the City of London, the evening was attended by industry guests including retailers, private equity investors, equity advisers, turnaround and restructuring specialists, debt advisers and bankers.

The Drapers’ Company was founded over 600 years ago and from the outset it was a benevolent institution helping its members who fell into distress – a bit like an early turnaround fund – and entirely in keeping with the evening’s theme.

Dinner was followed by a panel discussion with: Luke Johnson (Chairman of Channel 4 Television and Risk Capital Partners) representing corporate birth; Ian Gray (Chairman of Robert Dyas and Scala, and a fellow of the Institute of Turnaround) representing turnaround; and Neville Kahn (Deloitte Reorganisation Services Partner) representing decline and resurrection.

Audience members were also asked to contribute their views on a number of key retail issues through an electronic voting system.

In summary the audience was bearish on the outlook for the economy. Less than 3 per cent thought that the economy would make a quick ‘V’ shaped recovery, compared to over 72 per cent who thought the recovery would be slow or very slow.

The audience was also conservative on investment prospects for the retail sector, with 57 per cent voting in favour of non-cyclical food grocers in comparison to homewares, DIY and electricals, which received a mere 7% of the vote. Interestingly the biggest threat to retail was seen to be the shift to new media and increasingly rapid changes in consumer tastes, with 57 per cent of the vote, in comparison to bureaucracy and red tape, which obtained 28 per cent of the vote.

Full results can be found below.

Dennis Levine, Chairman of Burdale Financial Limited commented: “On behalf of Burdale I would like to thank all of our guests for attending the dinner and contributing to our industry poll. In particular we were delighted to have the participation of such a distinguished panel of panellists, Luke, Ian and Neville, who generously shared their industry knowledge and insight to make it a truly enjoyable and informative evening for all.”

Question 1: Who do you think you are?
A. A retailer, private equity investor or equity adviser (29.5%)
B. A turnaround specialist (31.1%)
C. A debt advisor, banker (27.9%)
D. OMG, diary cock-up, I’m a week early for the BRC Dinner, LOL (11.5%)

Question 2: What shape’s your downturn?
A. “V” Shaped – A quick recovery (2.4%)
B. “W” Shaped – Bear market rallies (25.0%)
C. “Bath” Shaped – Slow recovery (46.0%)
D. “L” Shaped – An “L” of a long time (26.6%)

Question 3: Place your bets
A. Homewares, DIY, electricals – even a turkey can fly in a hurricane (6.5%)
B. Clothing, health & beauty – recession-chic to recovery treat (21.3%)
C. Food grocers – defensive, but big growth potential in non-food (56.6%)
D. Buying opportunity?? Bye bye retail shares……. (15.6%)

Question 4: Clicks or mortar, how would you grow?
A. Stores only – back to basics (4.9%)
B. Clicks ’n’ Mortar – a balancing act (54.5%)
C. Interweb only – an Apple in one hand, a Wang in the other – bliss! (24.4%)
D. You’d need your head examining to launch a retail business now (16.2%)

Question 5: What is a CVA?
A. Company Voluntary Arrangement (50.4%)
B. Creditors VERY Angry (16.3%)
C. Circling Vultures Attack (5.7%)
D. Created by Voracious Accountants (27.6%)

Question 6: How much is 114m sq ft?
According to Richard Hyman, UK retail has added a net 58m sq ft of space and the growth of online sales has added the equivalent of 56m sq ft – a total of 114m sq ft. To put this in perspective, that’s the equivalent of:
A. 7,350 Buckingham Palaces (17.1%)
B. 130 Millennium Domes (23.1%)
C. 1 Michael Jackson Neverland ranch (8.5%)
D. All of the above (51.3%)

Question 7: Finance for retail start-ups/ expansion/ turnaround plans is:
A. Rare as an investment banking bonus (18.1%)
B. Fairly scarce (37.7%)
C. Available at a price (43.4%)
D. As plentiful as the unsold books at a Katie Price book signing (0.8%)

Question 8: Credit where credit’s due
Bill Grimsey, CEO of Focus DIY, has said of the credit insurers that “they are fair-weather friends
who don’t go into enough detail, make unilateral decisions with short notice, and jeopardise
the future of businesses”. Do you agree with him?
A. Credit insurance is a fundamentally flawed business model (25.6%)
B. Well done Bill for articulating what others think (57.9%)
C. Credit insurers are doing a reasonable job in a tough market (13.2%)
D. KILL BILL….. (3.3%)

Question 9: Pre-packs, love them or loathe them
A. A useful tool to preserve some value when businesses are failing (43.3%)
B. Useful but possibly open to abuse in unethical hands (42.5%)
C. Evidence of crony capitalism (5.8%)
D. I’ve only come across pre-packs in IKEA (8.3%)

Question 10: Crystal ball time, the biggest threats to retail is?
A. Bureaucracy, red tape, working time directive etc (27.9%)
B. Hiring quality staff and young people (11.7%)
C. Minimum wage inflexibility (3.6%)
D. New Media - increasingly rapid changes in consumer tastes (56.8%)

The panel

Luke Johnson is Chairman of Channel 4 Television and Risk Capital Partners, a private equity firm. He was Chairman of Pizza Express during the 1990s and is currently an owner and Chairman of Giraffe restaurants and Patisserie Valerie, amongst other companies. He has also owned companies in recruitment, dentistry and retailing. For eight years he wrote a column on business in The Sunday Telegraph and now writes a weekly column for The Financial Times. After graduating in medicine from Oxford he worked as a stock broking analyst.

Ian Gray is currently Non-Executive Chairman of Scala Collections Limited, a mail order retailer of ladies apparel which operates under the brand names of Artigiano and Spirito. He is also a Non-Executive Director of Robert Dyas, where he recently led the Management Buy Out, and of The Kent Messenger Group. Ian is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and a Fellow of the Institute for Turnaround. Among his wide-ranging assignments, Ian’s boardroom experience includes numerous PLCs, and spans many different industry sectors including apparel, biotech, construction, distribution, electronics, engineering, FMCG, healthcare, leisure, manufacturing, media, retail, telecoms and travel. Ian Gray is a director of Baronsmead Consulting.

Neville Kahn is a Deloitte Reorganisation Services Partner and has over 20 years’ experience in restructuring. Neville has acted as lead insolvency practitioner on a number of complex administrations and receiverships, including Mosiac Fashions and Woolworths. He also has experience in strategic and financial business reviews, primarily focusing on developing strategies to protect and improve stakeholder positions. Neville is regularly engaged by debtors, senior and mezzanine lenders and opportunity funds. He has worked in this sector for the past 20 years, and more than 13 as a partner.

Submitted by Judith McMath - FCA, Director, Burdale Financial Limited

www.burdale.co.uk a member of Bank of Ireland Group

Image Copyright: Flickr

The views contained in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commercial Finance People