Posts Tagged ‘business lending’
Reducing Lender Risk Increases Business Lending
November 18th, 2010
“What Can You Do To Reduce Risk In Your Business Financing Application To Get A Lender To Say Yes”
In order to acquire any amount of business financing, the lender, investor, or funding source needs to be able to be comfortable with the risk of loss versus opportunity for profitable return. Clearly the latter must out weigh the former, or no business loan or other form of capital is coming your way any time soon.
Especially these days as we continue to crawl out of the recession, lenders are much less likely to take on any level of risk than they were two or three years ago. Which has created a considerable problem with business owners in that they don’t generally know that the bar has been raised on lending applications and if they want to secure financing of any sort, they are going to have to not only show a debt lender or investor that the risk of loss is low, they are going to have to proactively put things into place to protect the source of capital from losing money.
In taking from some marketing vernacular I heard the other day, its all about “stacking the cool”. This refers to marketers giving you so many features and benefits, many times above and beyond the core product, that you become strongly motivated to make a buying decision in their favor.
Same goes with business financing folks.
If you’re looking to secure money, you’re wearing your marketing hat as much as your finance hat. And its not just about accurately telling a good story about why someone should give you money. Its also about how you are going to make sure they get paid back with their expected return, or how are you going to stack the cool?
Obviously my analogy is somewhat of a stretch for the stuffy world of finance, but bear with me.
I was recently working on a rather tough deal that provided enough lender risk that we weren’t getting any where with relevant financing sources. So we started to stack up ways to reduce the lender risk…Corporate guarantees, personal guarantees, higher down payment, vendor repurchasing agreement for a portion of the asset value, etc.
Of course all these things are trade offs and can provide greater risk to the borrower. But if you need the money and no one is prepared to give it to you at any price, then its time to start taking on more of the risk or finding other ways to generate the capital your business needs.
After weeks of coming up with different risk reduction strategies, a financing commitment was provided that otherwise was never going to happen in the current market in the time the borrower had to work with. In better times, the process may not have been so hard and the borrower may not have had to take on as much risk as they ended up taking. But then again it may have been very similar, even in better times.
Point is that you need to be prepared to off load lender risk by taking on more yourself or finding someone else to participate. As I mentioned above, sellers may be interested in helping reduce risk to sell their products. Insurance companies may have programs that can reduce certain types of risks the lender is uncomfortable with. The more you strengthen the deal, the better your odds of getting funded.
Now that would be cool.
Click Here To Speak With Business Financing Specialist Brent Finlay
Business FinancingThe Hypocrasy Of Lenders And Borrowers
October 29th, 2010
“Who Exactly Will Honor Their Commitments In The Debt Financing Process?”
When it comes to business financing, the whole process is an interesting study on promise, commitment, and follow through on both the side of the borrower and the lender.
When lenders are prepared to issue a commitment, they provide a piece of boiler plat, pounded out by their lawyers, that a borrower can’t possibly comply with in an absolute sense with more out clauses built in than most hollywood prenups. The lender words everything in their favor and basically provides you with a take it or leave it proposal on all the crafted wording. Even if they are open to make changes, do you have the 30 to 60 days to wait to deal with the back and forth process between their legal counsel, head office and your lawyer?
Probably not. So are lenders hypocrites, preaching loan defaults on one hand and then causing them to happen on the other? Sure they are.
But what about the other side of the equation?
Many business owners will say just about anything to get the capital they’re looking for, especially if their in a real pinch. The prospects of things not working out are not an option and if things do go sideways sometime in the future, the business owner will deal with the problem when required.
Yet, when things do go south, the first thing the borrower does is to try and think up every conceivable strategy to get out from paying back the debt or having to go bankrupt or needing to liquidate other assets to repay the lender that was promised to be repaid… in writing.
Basically, both sides both talk out of both sides of their mouth.
Which is one of the main reasons the current financial markets are in such a mess.
The lesson here if any is that the process of borrowing and lending is very much a game where the rules can be changed by both sides all the time. Its also not for the faint of heart. So if you want to be a borrower or a lender, make sure you’re up for the risk that goes with it.
Sure, as individuals we are conditioned to take on debt to drive the economy…homes, cars, credit cards. But business credit takes risk to a different level, requiring much more savy and fortitude to properly play the game.
The old expression, “neither a borrower or lender be” has been around for a long time for good reason.
But the reality of business is that leverage is required to make the economy go round. So if you’re in business, you’re in this game.
The challenge right now is that most business owners don’t realize that this is a game due to the fact that we have had an unprecedented good run over the last few decades and they haven’t previously had to deal with things not going so well for an extended period of time.
So regardless of your personal moral fiber and commitment to do the right thing, understand that from the impact of the current recession the financial world has now changed and the probability of you as a business owner or lender being on the wrong side of someone else’s agenda are much higher.
Business financing is definitely both art and science. Its also a mix of good intentions and bad, unfortunate circumstances and fateful occurrence.
In the words of Andrew Grove, “only the paranoid survive”. its not about whether or not you’re a hypocrite or not any more regardless if you’re a borrower or lender. Its about how well you play the game.
As far as morals and ethics go, you should always be prepared to play fair… as long as everyone else does.
Click Here To Speak To Business Financing Specialist Brent Finlay
Business FinancingUnderstanding Lending Models
July 14th, 2010
“Different Business Lending Models Create Both Opportunity and Confusion”
Sometimes a particular financing opportunity, especially when there are hard assets involved, can have many different business lending models that apply to it.
Even within a single lender there can be multiple groups that could potentially consider your deal. As an example, a major bank can have a business financing group, a corporate banking group, a subordinate debt group, a leasing division, an asset based lending group, and so on.
While there are some demarcation lines between the different lending groups, there still is some over lap and many times confusion as to who you should be talking to or what you should be considering.
The reason this exists is that lending models tend to be very specific in terms of what they will consider and how deals can be structured. They are also rather inflexible so as to maintain a certain amount of integrity in the lending policies that have been established in the first place. Following the rules is a big part of effectively managing risk and straying outside of the lines is not.
So for each different business lending application, there tends to be a different business models that are going to apply to provide a frame work from which money can be advanced to customers.
The challenge to the business owner is that each business is somewhat unique to any other business in terms of size, age, credit, asset composition, management, etc.
So many times, the financial profile of a given business can attract interest from different lending models. The hard part is trying to figure out which ones apply and which ones would be the better fit for the business at a given point in time.
Remember that business lending models are also somewhat fluid in that they can be discontinued, or make changes to their lending policies and practices. For instance, if a business lender has made a large number of loans and placed a significant amount of dollars into certain assets of a certain industry or sector, the lender may stop issuing capital at some point in order to keep its overall portfolio in balance. So a lending program that was available last week is no longer available through the same lender this week for a similar application.
The same can be said for loss concentrations in a particular sector like we’ve recently seen in the automotive industry where business lending all but dried up for any one requiring capital from that business sector.
The best way to approach the market at any given time is to work with a business financing specialist who knows the lay of the land and can quickly apply your requirements to the market at a given point of time so that you’re always focusing on the most relevant options available and not wasting time on shifting sands.
Click Here to Speak To Business Financing Specialist Brent Finlay
Business FinancingMarket Opportunities For Business Lenders
July 3rd, 2010
“The Recent Turmoil In The Capital Markets Has Created Opportunities for Business Lenders”
Not only have we been witness to a large number of global bank failures in the last two years, but there have also been a number of high profile lenders that have downsized their operations in certain areas and completely pulled out of some jurisdictions all together.
The resulting shifts in the business financing sands have created both holes in the market and opportunities. The business lenders that remain now are presented with additional opportunities to expand their portfolios, provided they can adapt their services and risk management towards a new opportunity.
For the business owner or business manager, this has created new commercial financing options in the market to replace what has recently disappeared. Although the level of overall financing competition in all slices of the market is still down overall, the expansion by existing players is a welcome improvement.
At the same time, don’t expect these new programs to hit the market with any great force. While the lenders involved are going to be serious about exploring the identified opportunities, they are most likely to start by wading into the shallow end of the pool as they take their time getting used to water of a new market or niche.
So while it may be very much worth your while to explore these new options that could now be available in your back yard, you’re going to have to have some patience as market expansion in the world of business financing is more of turtle versus hare approach.
But as time goes by, positive experience will also lead to program expansion and more aggressive lending practices. And as the economy continues to turn around, more changes can be expected in terms of the lender mix and offerings in any market.
This will also have a dramatic impact on supply, rates and terms in certain locales where the dominant lender in a category has completely disappeared and competitors decide on their interest in filling the void that remains.
In a time when lending markets continue to trend through uncertainty its good to see some of the participants prepared to venture out into new areas where opportunity has become available.
Hopefully this will soon become more of the norm versus the exception.
Click Here To Speak To Business Financing Specialist Brent Finlay
Business Financing