Factoring

Davenham is the latest factoring company to cease

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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

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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.

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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 banalities 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

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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 ?

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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.