Challenge Finance the small Kent based factoring company has been in trouble for a few years if the rumours are to be believed but it seems that it’s backers have finally lost patience and pulled the plug by appointing Administrators.
Hopefully a white knight will hurridly appear so that the repurcussions for the 90 clients won’t be too severe as if Bibby another factoring company were to move quickly the disruption would be minimized.
Hopefully Coface won’t lose too much money on this failure as they are still licking their wounds over the Wageroller debacle which cost them a pretty penny
Any idea who has been appointed yet?
Wageroller has obviously made up Coface’s minds to get some cash back from it’s UK investments. Fair enough but Challenge have taken a bit of an unfair kicking here.
Every client we’ve put in there has been happy with what they are getting and as a broker I’ve been impressed by what Phil Padgham has delivered.
I would be the first to have a go at a factor who is taking the Michael, like Close and their massive termination fees for instance, but I think Challenge have tried hard with their clients folowing a pretty torrid time.
I have no direct experience of Challenge Finance whether positive or negative but I don’t think I would recommend any client of mine to use a factoring company that wasn’t a member of the ABFA especially one which had a Balance Sheet that showed an insolvent position
I too was sorry to hear that Challenge Finance have gone into administration. Leonard Curtis have been appointed. My thoughts go out to the staff at Challenge from another small independant factor, here’s hoping for a satisfactory outcome all round.
Good to see the factoring blog so far ahead of Business Money in getting news to the market.
Business Money has put a very unusual spin on this Administration as according to them Challenge had been completely transformed in recent months with the old poor quality clients “managed away” to be replaced by better quality clients.
We understand that the bad debt recently suffered was significant but one has to wonder if all of the bad news was out of the way and the future looked bright – why did Coface suddenly lose confidence and appoint Administrators
Tom – this blog is primarily concerned with factoring, invoice discounting and trade finance as they are the main areas that I operate in.
We did cover the demise of Wageroller but that was mainly because of their continued self promotion about what a wonderful alternative to factoring it was whereas Smartflow Finance (Wageroller clone) had such a low profile that most people had never heard of it and the only time that it made waves was a year or so ago when it ran into financial problems and possibly again now that it has gone bust
Good use of the forum for invoice finance, the Companies House website doesn’t show any Admin yet for Flow (Europe) Ltd which is the incorporated name of SmartFlow Finance. Interesting that Bibby is shown as debenture holder.