Ian

What a load of self righteous drivel

by

I was thumbing through a copy of what a Factoring Blog commenter once described as the Hello magazine of the factoring world and was quite astounded at some of the self righteous drivel being spouted, and I was still only on the first page.

The editor was thanking the factoring company who sponsored that particular edition and included such sanctimonious claptrap as “this bulwark of SME finance is being stalked by the irritating and inconsequential” further claiming that “we are honoured to stand with them, facing their detractors with reasoned and robust debate”

Apart from the utter hypocrisy of Hello Factoring referring to The Telegraph as inconsequential I have searched and searched and cannot find any example of them publicly “standing with their sponsor and facing their detractors” with reasoned or indeed with any other type of debate and if the truth be known the only person who has publicly stood with this factoring company and faced their detractors is yours truly.

Perhaps the factoring company in question would like to spend a few grand sponsoring the next edition of Factoring Blog 🙂

Rate swap miss-selling and invoice finance

by

It seems that many companies who have been miss-sold rate swaps are loathe to take action as they are concerned that their bankers might not take kindly to being sued by their own customer and could respond by calling in overdrafts etc.

One or two companies have looked at invoice finance as a financial tool specifically to help them move out of the clutches of their bankers in order to allow them to institute proceedings against them without fear of any comeback with one company that we know receiving damages of £390,000 this week from their ex bankers having first of all utilized invoice finance to move themselves to safety.

Factoring Solutions has teamed up with one of the major factoring companies plus a consortium of finance companies and banks that are willing and able to offer banking facilities, asset based lending and commercial mortgages to any company that wishes to safeguard their financial position before entering into “discussions” with their current bankers about compensation

 

Factoring companies and Administration. Another tale of woe

by

I had a company referred to me last week which had been placed into Administration by their factoring company a few days before Christmas.

The company had not been particularly happy with their factoring facility and had been asking about early termination when out of the blue the Administrators came marching in the week before Christmas.

The director does not know why the factoring company put them into Administration as the factors have been vague and the court documentation was missing but one of the reasons given was that the director had been elusive and the factors had been unable to speak to them for some while. They seem to have completely ignored the fact that the so called elusive director had been in constant email contact with another of the factor’s directors for some while.

The company is a subcontractor in the construction industry operating on contracts with Applications for Payment etc yet was factoring with one of the smaller factoring companies not known for it’s appetite for the construction industry.

There are no assets within the company apart from the debts and as the company was relatively small turning over just £500,000 one has to wonder at the point of appointing costly Adminstrators as they already had possession of the only asset.

The Administrators themselves are a firm well known in factoring circles and they have told the company’s directors that if they setup another company to trade again unless they buy the assets off them for £50,000 the Administrators will have forensic examiners crawling all over the old company’s books to find evidence (which doesn’t exist) of wrong doing.

As the assets excluding the debtors aren’t worth anything my guess is that the Adminstrators are trying to put the frighteners on the company otherwise they won’t get their fees paid.

This looks like yet another cautionary tale of a company being needlessly and pointlessly put into Administration by it’s factoring company and from what I have been told the termination fees applied have been quite sizeable.

I have put the company in touch with an insolvency lawyer who is happy to review the whole case to see if there is anything that can be done at this late stage and hopefully when the whole story comes out there will be another story for James Hurley at The Telegraph as his articles generate far more publicity than anything I can write.

Ultimate Finance News

by

In the last 24 hours I have received two press releases from Ultimate Finance.

The first gave details of their recent introducer jolly where Ultimate apparently took a number of their key introducers to Dubai for an all expenses paid weekend.

“This winter sunshine break saw the group sightseeing and experiencing the culture of one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world – highlights included a Jeep Safari in the desert, lunch at a 5* hotel overlooking the tallest building in the world, an evening cruise on a luxury boat taking in the beautiful Dubai skyline and the thrill seekers amongst the group also experienced some of the best waterslides in the world”

One of the introducers was moved to state “Thanks to all the staff at Ultimate for a great trip to Dubai and hospitality second to none. I will be getting some more business to you to book my place on the Ultimate 2013 trip”

Whilst another stated:-

“The trip to Dubai was hands down the best incentivised trip I have been on with one of our finance partners. Clearly carefully planned by the Ultimate team, we had a jam packed schedule with lots to do and not at any point did I have to put my hands in my pocket to pay for anything. Everything was catered for and paid for by the Ultimate team, 10 out of 10 guys; I will see you on next year’s trip”

I suppose that it’s naïve to hope that brokers introduce business to the factoring company that best fits their needs not the one that provides the best introducer incentives but I suppose that I’m old fashioned that way.

Amusingly 12 hours later a further press release arrived and this one was concerning the recent placement of shares in order to raise £2.6m. I’m sure that the two events aren’t connected as surely a weekend jolly in Dubai can’t cost that much – or can it?

It’s silly season otherwise known as annual awards time

by

Silly season is back again with annual awards being dished out to all and sundry. It seems that the same small handful of companies share the awards around each year with the exception of the NACFB award for factoring and invoice discounting which seems to be won by Bibby every year.

I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact that they have a Bibby representative on the NACFB board. 🙂

The latest shortlist to be published is probably the daftest one yet as the Institute of Credit Management (ICM) in their infinite wisdom have accepted nominations from the following three companies for their Commercial Finance Provider of the Year award.

Market Invoice
Bank of Valletta
Touch Financial

Touch Financial is of course not a commercial finance provider at all but is a broking outfit with a hardworking self promotions department whilst the other two I guess were nominated by someone with a sense of humour.

The blurb accompanying the press release contained the following masterpiece

“The outstanding quality of entries received for these brand new awards was extremely high and a reflection of the great achievements made in the industry.

The glittering award ceremony will be held at the prestigious Hilton Park Lane Hotel in London, and will provide the winners of the first ever ICM British Credit Awards with exceptional recognition before some of the industry’s most influential people.”