Factoring Blog » Factoring

Aston Rothbury portfolio acquired by Bibby

Ian — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:45:45 +0000

Bibby Financial Services have acquired the client portfolio of Aston Rothbury Factors which apparently comprises just 40 clients and is considerably less than the 109 clients claimed in Business Money earlier this year.

Davenham is the latest factoring company to cease

Ian — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:14:41 +0000

It has been well known for a while that Davenham were in serious trouble and they have been pretending to lend recently rather than actually doing so.

The staff were told to expect a decision on the company’s future by the end of June and that future now seems to be that they are formally ceasing to write new business whilst the company enters “collect out” mode.

Whilst it is possible for them to collect out their loan book in a prudent and orderly manner as claimed by the company, one cannot do that with factoring so I hope that arrangements are in hand to transfer the book to another factoring company causing as little pain as possible in the process.

This is the third factoring company in a very short space of time to crash into the rocks following hard on the heels of Aston Rothbury a few days ago and Challenge a few months ago so let’s hope that this is the end of it now as it doesn’t do the industry any good at all.

Aston Rothbury has gone bust

Ian — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:06:07 +0000

Just a couple of hours after blogging that nothing much was happening in the world of factoring I was informed that Aston Rothbury had gone bust just three months after Business Money had said how refreshing it was to see what a change of management had done for the company.

Hopefully the cash flow of the clients will be unaffected as according to representatives of the Administrator, Aston Rothbury will continue to trade and has the continued support of Lloyds TSB.

Restaurants and eating out etc.

Ian — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:11:55 +0000

I haven’t added to the blog recently as there doesn’t seem to be much happening in the factoring world and I don’t wish to pad out the blog with boring rubbish about what factoring is or the difference between factoring and invoice discounting or other such banalitiies so I have just remained silent.

I was taken out to lunch today by one of my favourite factoring companies who reminded me that in the past I had taken gentle digs at them over their apparent poor treatment of me in the “entertainment stakes” but had omitted to mention that they had more than made up for it when the Chief Executive and four of his colleagues all came up to the Midlands to take me out for a rather nice dinner, arranging for a chauffeur driven limousine to pick me up in the process.

My comments were all very tongue in cheek but I must admit they surpassed themselves today by taking me out for lunch at San Giovanni a restaurant 15 minutes drive away from me that I had never even heard of, let alone eaten at before. Excellent food with quite a superb Pinot Grigio in a beautiful setting and needless to say good company (otherwise I would have politely declined the invitation.)

Perhaps if the factoring world continues to be quiet I should change this blog into a food review blog instead but in the meantime I can heartily recommend the wild mushroom risotto

Platinum Funding bust and bought

Ian — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:26:08 +0000

I always viewed Platinum Funding as one of the factoring bottom feeders who took on cases that everyone else had turned down and then charged them a huge amount in fees for the priviledge so when I was told last week that they had gone into Administration I was partly relieved.

I have just been told that the book of existing clients has been bought by Aston Rothbury and to say that I am dumbfounded would be a great understatement.

Davenham to be taken over by Bibby Factors ?

Ian — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:36:52 +0000

A whisper has reached my ears that Bibby Factors are deep in negotiations with Davenham which could result very shortly in a take-over of the fledgling factoring operation which has struggled to get away due to Davenham’s well chronicled lack of money.

I’m not sure whether the deal will also include the trade finance division which is probably attractive from Bibby’s point of view but as there isn’t enough competition in this sector from the market’s point of view I hope that it doesn’t.

Termination fees on factoring facilities – justified or ripoff?

Ian — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:11:56 +0000

I was approached by a company yesterday who had given notice of termination to their factoring company to be told that the factor wished to levy termination fees as the client hadn’t drawn down as much of their funding line as had been anticipated and a figure of £1,500 was what the factor told them would be charged.

The company is turning over £200,000 per annum and was drawing down £20,000 of funding instead of the £30,000 that the factor anticipated and was paying 2% over Libor for the priviledge.

Assuming that the factoring company make a turn of 2% on the funds that they put out that would equate to £200 loss of income on the £10,000 over a whole year so I can’t see how a charge of £1,500 can possibly be justified.

My personal feeling is that the charge is extortionate and trying to squeeze extra fees out of a company that has fulfilled it’s contractual obligations is bringing the whole factoring industry into disrepute.

I won’t name and shame quite yet as the charge hasn’t been finalised but I did suggest that the client might mention as part of his negotiations that the broker charged with finding a replacement factor is the “bloke that writes the factoring blog” as hopefully that may cause them to rethink their policy.

Factoring company owner imprisoned for money laundering

Ian — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:12:45 +0000

Brian Nalborough the ex owner of Aston Rothbury Factors who laundered millions of pounds of tainted and stolen money has been jailed four years for his role as a banker to the criminal underworld.

It would seem that Nalborough is no stranger to prison having previously spent time in an Italian jail on charges of illegally supplying arms to Bosnia.

It would seem to be more than likely in the circumstances that some of that money ended up funding Aston Rothbury clients.

Liquidity / Bank Santander now booting out their clients

Ian — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:26:18 +0000

It seems that having purchased a factoring company specialising in smaller and riskier clients Bank Santander now don’t want them and are giving them notice.

Having received an enquiry from the second Liquidity client within a week the factoring company that I passed them to said that they had also received several more through other channels.

One does wonder why on earth they bought this particular factoring company if that wasn’t the sector of the market that they wished to be in – it must have been the tax losses

Bank Santander enter the UK factoring market

Ian — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:39:31 +0000

Bank Santander have entered the UK factoring market not with a bang but with a wimper. The Spanish banking giant has been sniffing around the many factoring companies for sale for some time and were rumoured to be the frontrunners to take over Cattles Invoice Finance until getting cold feet and have instead plumped for the little known Liquidity Ltd a small factoring outfit based in Birmingham.

I have always been very dubious of recommending any of my clients to Liquidity as it is run by the same person that used to be the Chief Executive of Euro Sales Finance until it was rescued by Royal Bank of Scotland in 2001. Prior to being taken over by the bank Euro Sales topped the league tables of independent factoring companies appointing Receivers to their clients.

In 1999 and 200 Euro Sales Finance accounted for one in five of all Receiverships appointed by independent factoring companies which was a horrifying statistic and one that has ensured that I never deal with any factoring company that has any of their old directors in a management position.