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Asset Based Lending (ABL ) allows you to raise significant funding for your business through a combination of traditional Factoring or Invoice Discounting and funds raised against your existing assets. In terms of lending solutions, whether you’re planning on growing, buying, refinancing or expanding, Asset Based Lending can often raise significantly greater funding than traditional bank lending.

How it works

Asset Based Lending allows you to raise from £50k – £50m with:

• up to 100% on outstanding invoices
• up to 80% of the market value on plant and machinery
• up to 30% on raw materials
• up to 50% on finished products
• up to 60% on property

Advantages

• Raise money for MBI/MBO’s or refinancing, without surrendering equity
• Enjoy continuity of funding, which grows as your business grows

• ABL is a fast and effective way to fund growth and it’s scalable
•   It provides a higher availability of working capital when  compared with traditional lending facilities
• receivable and inventory facilities are revolving facilities,  with available working capital growing in line with your business
• Build an Asset based Lending package to fit your precise requirements
• Asset based lending will  help maintain cash flow – especially seasonally for businesses who trade in fluctuating markets.

City centres are in danger of becoming ghost towns as shopping habits change, a committee of MPs has warned.  A fifth of UK retail sales now occur online with that proportion likely to grow, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee said.

The Committee called for lower business rates and more regeneration in town centres as well raising taxes for online giants such as Amazon.

The government said it was investing to ensure High Streets “adapt and thrive for generations” but the impact on high streets had been “stark”, resulting in “store closures, persistently empty shops and declining footfall”.

One problem, the committee said, was that High Street retailers paid much higher business rates than online retailers because of their greater reliance on physical premises.

Amazon UK’s rates, for example, are about 0.7% of its UK turnover, while most High Street retailers pay between 1.5% and 6.5%.

To counter this, the MPs said the government should look again at bringing in an online sales tax – an idea the Treasury previously ruled out over concerns it would penalise consumers.

The committee urged it to consider “green taxes” on online deliveries and packaging, as well as higher VAT and a general sales tax.

The revenue raised would be put towards a reduction in business rates for High Street retailers and more funding for regeneration, it said.

The committee also called for planning reforms to create more “green spaces” in city centres, as well as more leisure, culture and social care services.

And it said High Street retailers themselves needed to focus on “experience” and “convenience” to lure shoppers back – for example by extending their opening hours.

High Streets Minister Jake Berry said the government had unveiled a £675m plan to support English High Streets at the last Budget.

“We know High Streets are the backbone of our economy and a crucial part of our local communities, and we want to see them thrive – both now and in the future.

“We’re supporting small retailers too, slashing business rates by a third – building on more than £13bn of rates relief since 2016.”

We have a number of finance options for retailers to support growth and cashflow.  These include Business Loans for any purpose, Asset Finance to fund shop refurbishments of investment in equipment, Commercial Mortgages for buying retail property, Flexible Overdrafts to ease cashflow problems and Merchant Cash Advances which give advances on future sales.

A report produced by the government on late payments and how they affect SMEs shows that the number of average days a business has to wait to get paid is getting longer. 

Many SMEs, especially when dealing with single large businesses, find it difficult to influence the terms of contracts with customers or challenge them over payments.

Bacs Payment Schemes Limited put the total figure owed to SMEs at £14 billion, while the Zurich Risk Index estimated that SMEs were owed £45 billion by larger companies alone, having previously reported that SMEs were owed a total of £225 billion in late payments. The UK performs worse than other countries both in terms of the proportion of invoices that are late, and the total amount of late payments and amount of late payments written off as bad debt.

There is also a wider cumulative effect, where late payments prevent whole industries and sectors becoming more productive and makes them less able to invest in infrastructure and skills. The report found that SMEs write off up to 7.5% of late payments as bad debt. In the worst-case scenario, small businesses can go bankrupt because of the cash flow problems caused by late payments. It has been estimated that each year as many as 50,000 small business go bankrupt with loss of up to 350,000 jobs.

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in June 2018 found that more than a third of small suppliers had had their payment terms increased over the previous 2 years, indicating what it characterises as “supply chain bullying”. SMEs can also face other unfavourable terms. The FSB reported that 12% of SMEs it surveyed had been asked for a discount for prompt payment, 7% for retrospective discounting, 6% for a fee to remain on a suppliers list and 3% had experienced a discount being applied after goods and services had been supplied.

Businesses can consider Factoring invoicing to ease the pressure on cashflow. We specialise in this type of finance so contact us for more information.