A traditional cash flow loan from a banks point of view would be based on the turnover and profitability of a business. Before the recession cash flow loans were a prelevent form of bank lending.  They were often used in management buy outs to raise cash to buy the businesses along with other purposes. It was not out of the question to raise funds many times greater than the actual value of the tangible assets of the business.

During a buoyant economy this kind of lending is absolutely fine however as soon as things slow down, as they did recently, serviceability may become an issue and as such the banks find themselves with large loans to businesses with very little or no security. It is no wonder the banks have had such a slating recently for lending on this basis. The recession hits and the banks no longer lend on this basis and are accused of not lending any money. It appears to me that they dammed if they do and dammed if the don’t.

The alternative to cash flow lending is asset based lending whereby a bank or financial institution lend against the asset of the business. These are predominantly invoice finance companies that will lend up to 90% of a businesses debtor book, provide a commercial mortgage, lend approx 50% against any unencumbered machinery and also have the ability to lend against stock and in  certain circumstances provide international trade finance.

Whilst a bank has the ability to provide asset based lending they don’t tend to have the expertise as some of the specialist lenders and as such it is often worthwhile speaking to an independent business finance specialist to see what alternatives are available. XL Business has over 10 years experience in helping businesses in this often overcomplicated sector of business finance.

Any business wishing to organise equipment finance for new or used capital purchases may find that the banks not very accommodating at the moment. Any Managing Director or Finance Director may possibly not know who to turn to . It also appears that the choice of finance company appears to be continually diminishing. The good news is that XL Business Finance has the expertise and experience to source hire purchase and finance lease facilities from a variety of lesser know finance house and independent companies.

In addition even if the bank are offering a facility it is advisable to consider an alternative  hire purchase or finance lease deal provided by a third party funder. The banks tend to offer funding by way of a commercial loan. As they will probably not secure the loan against the equipment itself they will only lend against the strength of the balance sheet or the amount of available security. This may have implications for raising finance at future dates as valuable funding lines may have been exhausted. Therefore if the equipment to be purchased has some value, it is Durable, Identifiable and Moveable than it maybe possible to organise third party funding

XL Business Finance has many years experience in arranging lease facilities for all kind of things including, computers, printers, office furniture, racking are but to name a few

Asset finance can play an important part of the overall consideration in a management buyout. Although it is often the last piece of the jigsaw it can make the difference between making a deal happen and not making a deal happen. Furtherm0re it is imperative that you get a decent asset finance broker to coordinate the best possible deal.

Once upon a time it was very easy to obtain a cash flow loan from a high street bank against the overall facility. A cash flow loan is an amount a bank will advance based on the profitability of a business. Before the credit crunch and the recession these cash flow lends were relatively easy to obtain as the banks were awash with cash and fighting tooth and nail to do deals. How things have changed. An MBO is nowadays funded by the cash within the business ( if there is any), refinancing any property using the debtor  book  via factoring or invooice discounting and more often than not some deferred consideration.

In terms of the asset finance you will obtain funding from a specialist asst based lender. Refinancing of plant and machinery for such purposes is a very specialist market and it is mot usually provided by the high streets banks and finance companies as they do not have the same expertise. There are currently about half a dozen asset based lenders and they all do things sligtly differently. They all have a niche area and value different types of kit in different sectors slightly differently.

I suppose it is good news that we are continuing to receive business finance enquiries for new start businesses. The most recent one of which is for a £40,000 LCD exhibition screen. The discussion with the directors prompted me to remind oneself of the process required for funding a new business with very little trading history.

Many businesses that we see that have been trading for less than twelve months have had various experiences with the high street banks. In our experience inexperienced account mangers get the customers jumping through hoops promising that the bank will do the deal only to be overruled when the deal goes for credit approval. In our experience it doesn’t matter how good the business plans are unless three years decent trading figures can be produced then it is unlikely that the banks will help.

The good news is that there a number of leasing and hire purchase companies that will lend to newly formed businesses. Hover in the case of our £40k LCD business any finance company will view this as a soft asset with very little security. Most finance companies will advance up to £10k per decent guarantor providing that the guarantor is a home owner, has a reasonable amount of equity in that house and they must also have a clear personal search profile. There are however one or two companies that may take a view on the overall deal an providing funding for the whole project. If that doesn’t work then we are in the territory of second charges on property!

We have come across a very interesting scenario in the last week or so whereby another broker had bee quoting a very very cheap rate on a hire purchase deal. Not wishing to criticise my fellow broking colleagues I suggested to the customer that maybe  not all is at it should be.

 Most finance companies have the same funding costs and they have the ability to link it to fixed rates or variable rates. At the time of writing this article the cost of fixed funds for most finance companies is around 4.o%. I would suggest that a margin of 2.5-3% would be a fair return giving a nominal rate to the customer of about 6.5-7%. Therefore when a customer was being quoted 5.5% on a hire purchase deal one can only deduce that the broker was about to sign the deal up on a variable rate. Most finance companies on a variable are taking a min base rate of around 3% so this would seem to stack up.

At a time when interest rates are really low it would make sense to go for the slightly more expensive fixed rate because rates are only going to go up but maybe not in the immediate future. At the end of the day it must b the customers choice and as such the customer must be aware as to what he is signing up for. As provision of  hire purchase or finance lease to business users is totally unregulated the end user must be aware that even a written quote may not contain this vital information

Love or hate them pe organised administrations or prepacks are an inevitable part of the economy today. In theory they sound great. Dump the old company together with all the old debt ( mainly crown arrears) , buy the business back off the administrator and start a fresh with a new meaner and leaner phoenix company. It has been well documented that obtaining  cash flow finance such as factoring or invoice discounting can be relatively straight forward however it may not be so simple in transferring existing hie purchase and leasing facilities from the old co into the new co.

How easy or difficult this may be depends upon the finance company involved and whether it is a finance lease or hire purchase facility. In the event of an administration if the equipment in question is on a hire purchase facility than the administrator has the right to any equity in the agreement and may take this into consideration when negotiating a purchase price for the business. If the agreement is subject to a finance lease then control of the agreement rests with the finance company. In theory the finance company can terminate the agreement, repossess the kit and sell the equipment and pocket any profit. Thankfully this doesn’t happen very often but none the less it is something that could happen.

It would therefore seem allot simpler if the agreements could be transferred or novated into the new co. Unfortunately many of the high street finance companies will not simply transfer the agreement into the new co. They have a policy of not supporting phoenix companies. There are one or two that do but they underwrite the new co as if it were a new deal so there is no guarantee. If they don’t like what they see they will provide a settlement figure and give the  business the opportunity to finance the kit elsewhere. Some of the specialist funders do not have an issue in transferring the agreement into a new co. Beware some will transfer the agreement like for like whereas others will charge full outstanding rentals and then roll this into a new co.

In the last  month or so a new asset funder has entered the broker market providing a much needed alternative to ING  Lease. Aldermore Bank have entered the  asset finance market as a direct competitor or alternative to ING.

Not that there is anything wrong with ING Lease. Far from it. Over the last 10 years they have been without a doubt the most consistent and effeficient finance provider  in the leasing and asset finance market. However during the last eighteen months  they have been the only serious  funder. Prior to the credit crunch there were at least 4 finance companies that we could have obtained competitive finance and hire purchase facilities. They include Lombard, Barclays, Yorkshire Bank and ING Bank. All were doing extremely competitive deals in order to win your business. However as the credit crunch took hold they all withdrew their leasing facilities and were only doing deals for their very best customers. As such ING has been bursting at the seams and once a customer was at he maximum level with INGthere has been very few alternatives. The only alternative were very expensive second or third tier lenders that without a doubt would have all required guarantees irrelevant as to the quality of the covenant or asset based lenders that are only able to lend against the trade value of the kit.

Therefore having a new prime funder in the market is good news for everyone including ING. Whilst we are not expecting Aldermore to replace ING they will certainly mop up the stronger credits where ING are full. I think it will take some time before they take on the marginal deals but none the less still good news!

It is possible to refinance existing plant and machinery in order to release cash for any purpose ( within reason ) Provided there is equity within your plant and machinery there are a number of finance companies that will advance cash via  a sale and lease back or sale and hire purchase back agreements. And provided your business isnt on the verge of going bust you can release cash for most purposes including providing a deposit for a new machine , paying crown arrears of provided working capital to nge better payment terms with your suppliers

However refinancing existing plant and machinery is a very specialist area which the high street banks and leasing companies have absolute no experience or appetite. There are probably only about half a dozen leasing company in the UK that provide such a facility. As it s a specialist area funding comes at a premium so you can expect to pay slightly higher interest rates than you would get via the bank. However with the banks still being difficult when it comes to obtaining funding asset refinance is a viable option for many businesses. Not all types of assets are suitable security and as such it is worth getting an idea of the value of  your equipment before spending allot of time and effort providing financials etc. The types of equipment and machinery that are suitable are large chunky items such as printing, packaging engineering, commercial vehicles, coaches,  yellow plant  and basically any equipment that has a good residual value in the second hand market. Anything that is bespoke to a business tends to struggle to stack up even though it may have initially cost a considerable amount initially.

XL Business Finance will use over ten years experience to get the best possible valuation for asset refinance. Different finance companies have different areas of expertise and we know which one will provide the best possible values for whatever kit it is that your are looking to release cash against

At a time when many of the high street banks and finance companies are still difficult to deal with it is imperative than any application for hire purchase or leasing facilities to the few remaining finance companies are presented in the best possible format. At XL Business finance we have over ten years of experience and expertese in organising competitive finance facilities for a variety of businesses. The following will give you an idea of the type of information that we will collate and present to the finance company.

1. We will require the last full set of audited accounts. We will need every single page and not just the most recent profit and loss and balance sheet.

2. We will require the most recent set of management accounts . If there has been more than twelve months since the last set of full audited accounts we will require management accounts  to the next full year and also the most recent set thereafter. As a minimum we will require a profit and loss and balance sheet. Any finance company will require the most up to date information that is available to ensure that the performance of the business is adequate for their requirements.

3. No matter how big the deal is three months bank statements will help to evidence serviceability. If three months clean bank statements can be provided then this is always be a massive positive in term of evidencing serviceability.

4. Confirmation of working capital facilities will also be useful. A copy of the bank overdraft or factoring facility letter is also a good idea to include

5. Background information will enable the underwriter to understand where the business has come from and the future plans

6. An aged debtor report will evidence the quality of your customer base

7. Most importantly we will need to provide a rational for the purchase. Is the kit replacing old kit? Will turnover increase, labour savings be made  or margins increase. It is always useful to know of any existing finance agreements coming to their end which again will evidence serviceability

8. Are personal guarantees available if any

9. Is there any other security available such as unencumbered kit or property which may help to increase security levels?

Last week XL Business finance was approached by a London based printing company that  needed  finance for a second hand print ppress costing approximately £80,000. Although the business was profitable and there was a strong rational for the purchase the deal did not tick all the right boxes for a high street finance company. A well known print finance company was fully exposed at around £250k and were unable to advance an further funding. We received the enquiry via our website and very quickly we were able to secure a hire purchase facility with a privately owned leasing company. This is a prime example as to how a asset finance broker can add value when it comes to organising hire purchase and finance lease facilities.

XL Business Finance has been helping similar businesses for over ten years and as such we have developed a reputation as one of the leading finance brokers in the country. At a time when many of the high street funders are still reluctant to bring up the shutters we can source alternative funding arrangements. Dotted around the country there are many independently owned leasing countries that all have a niche which can accommodate most situations. In addition many of these finance companies will not accept deals from any old asset finance  brokers. Unfortunately there are a few bad uns that give us good uns a bad name. Many of them are inexperienced retired bank managers that don’t know how to structure a deal. In order to have the best possible chance of getting your deal agreed make sure that the broker you are using is experienced and has an asset finance background