“With Some Exceptions, Asset Based Financing Is Only A Temporary Source of Business Loans”

Unless you’re a fairly large company with substantial profitability and assets, its unlikely that an asset based lending solution is going to be a long term or even a medium term funding solution.

The reasoning is fairly simple. The cost of most asset based lending will either not be affordable long term or will substantially eat away at your profits.

The focus of an asset based lender is to finance assets that either they can control directly or that they can easily set up a clear liquidation pathway to get their money back from the liquidation of the assets.

This specialized form of lending charges a premium for the lenders ability to provide funding in situations where conventional or traditional lenders will not be interested. By becoming focused on a slice of the asset lending market, the lending competition can be very minimal in many locales, creating an opportunity for pricing that reflect the underlying risk to the lender.

If you ask an asset based lender why their pricing may be substantially higher than a conventional financing source, the lender will regularly offer back that you’re renting equity due to the fact that the business does not have sufficient retained earnings from profitable operations or paid in capital to secure cheaper forms of money.

While some may feel this is a bit of a cheeky answer to the question, there is a lot of truth and merit in it as well.

First of all, the next option for financing if an asset based loan is secured will likely be an equity investor or equity injection from the current owners. Any investor will require a return on capital at or above what an asset based lender will be charging.

Second, by acquiring capital in the form of a loan, it can be acquired without diluting ownership and paid back according to an agreed upon repayment schedule.

Which leads us back to bridge financing. Outside of institutional asset based lenders that are priced off of the prime rate, the next best pricing options will need to get comfortable with how they are going to get paid back in one or two years or they won’t fund the deal.

Why? Because they know the cash flow will not be able to handle the higher cost of financing for an extended period of time and that without some realistic transition plan to cheaper money in the future, they will likely pass on the financing opportunity. This will then lead to even more expensive asset based loans that are more closely aligned with liquidation and price their financing accordingly, knowing full well that may of the borrowers will fail to turn the business around or find an exit strategy that will repay the debt.

That’s why its important to only enter into an asset based deal if you can clearly see the other side of the bridge or the probability of getting something in place is pretty high.

Otherwise you’ll on a bridge to nowhere fast when the cash flow can no longer service the debt.

Click Here To Speak To Business Financing Specialist Brent Finlay