Alternative Exits for Business Owners
If you’re looking to sell your company, it’s time to get creative. While the small business mergers and acquisitions market is finally inching forward and deals are getting done, they better reflect seller motivation than attractive valuations. Bank involvement in acquisition financing deals also remains low. As long as buyers are forced to pony up bigger equity checks, sellers frustrated by anemic valuations are unlikely to see pricing snap back. Offers remain far from desirable.
Still, if you’re looking longingly at an exit, fear not. Unconventional deal structuring can maximize a company’s long-term value and do wonders to bridge the gap between a buyer’s limitations and a seller’s expectations. If there’s just no way to get there via a traditional sale, there are alternative exit strategies that may yield better results.
Read full article: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2010/sb20100727_564778.htm?link_position=link1
Free Resources
Recovery May Take Two Years
The UK will have to wait another one to two years for a full economic recovery, according to a survey of 406 professional services firms.
Some 92 per cent of the business owners and managers surveyed by insurer QBE expect at least 12 more months of low or negative growth. Nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of all respondents think a full-blown recovery will take two years.
Read full article: http://www.growthbusiness.co.uk/news/business-news/1269983/recovery-may-take-two-years.thtml
Free Resources
Government launches ‘Big Society Bank’ to fund social enterprises
Millions of pounds from dormant bank accounts is be used to fund social businesses, the government announced on 19th July.
It is believed that up to £400m is available from bank accounts which have been left untouched for 15 years. The money will be used to fund community projects run by charities and voluntary groups as well as social enterprises, the term used to describe businesses which commit all or part of their profits to a social or environmental cause.
Speaking in Liverpool, prime minister David Cameron said: ”We have already said we will create a Big Society Bank to help finance social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups through intermediaries.
Read full article: http://www.businesszone.co.uk/topic/finances/government-launches-big-society-bank-fund-social-enterprises/29324?ref=ukbf
Free Resources
Vince Cable: ‘banks are misleading small firms’
Vince Cable has attacked bank claims that they are approving at least four out of every five small business loan applications as “misleading” ahead of the launch of Government ideas to improve the flow of finance.
The Business Secretary said that the banks had made it more difficult for businesses to apply and that they were failing to meet demand.
Market leader Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group have both stated that loan application approvals stand at more than 80pc.
Stephen Pegge, chairman of the British Bankers’ Association’s (BBA) small business panel, recently said the rest of the industry was hitting this rate, too.
However, Mr Cable said: “This is misleading. I think they are raising the hurdle. All the evidence from business, from the Institute of Directors and other bodies, is that banks are not lending as much as is needed.”
The Treasury and the Business Department will launch a consultation this week on business finance that will discuss the merits of imposing new lending targets on the semi-nationlised banks. Mr Cable has said that “mandatory action” to force Lloyds and RBS to lend more was attractive.
However, a Treasury source said at the weekend that the Government was still considering how effective such targets were following the last government’s inability to force the two banks to meet legally binding lending targets during the past year.
Free Resources
Entrepreneurs back Business Link’s demise
Two thirds of small business owners support the government’s decision to scrap the regional elements of advisory service Business Link, a poll by BusinessZone.co.uk reveals.
According to the survey of 516 entrepreneurs, 61% said the axing of the system to support SMEs in England is a good decision compared to 39% who believed it is a bad move.
Comments posted in response to the study included: ”Business Link was run in a misguided way by people who didn’t know what they were doing. They were all about looking like they were doing the right thing, rather than actually doing something useful.”
Another business owner said: ” I tendered for a web development project, with search ranking added and they made a complete hash of it. RIP Business Link; gone but happily forgotten.”
Read full article: http://www.businesszone.co.uk/topic/business-trends/entrepreneurs-back-business-links-demise/29281
Free Resources
9 Characteristics of Outstanding Leaders
Free Resources
Business Support Faces Axe
Concern is mounting that the government’s £1 billion ‘regional growth fund’ is a smokescreen for crippling cuts in much needed support and funding for entrepreneurs in the UK.
The fund, announced by chancellor George Osborne in the emergency Budget and recently launched by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, amounts to much less than the funds previously made available through regional development agencies (RDAs), which had around £1.7 billion to spend this year and which the government plans to phase out by 2012.
Read full article: http://www.growthbusiness.co.uk/channels/growth-strategies/leadership-and-management/1268713/business-support-faces-axe.thtml
Free Resources
Exceeding Expectation: the principles of outstanding leadership
For the last two years researchers at The Work Foundation have been conducting an in-depth qualitative research project investigating the links between leadership and high performance.
The analysis uncovered subtle yet striking leadership differentiators. These markers of outstanding leadership were consistent across our sample, despite differences in organisation, sector and function. The depth of the research has enabled us to unpack concepts such as trustand authenticity by understanding the different ways that leaders understand these words and how they put that into practice.
One of the few leadership publications to emerge from empirical research, and based on over 250 interviews, this paper presents the findings of an in-depth two-year study which explored the principles of outstanding leadership, demonstrating that a highly people-centred approach results in performance that surpasses expectations.
Download the full report here: http://www.theworkfoundation.com/Assets/Docs/leadershipFINAL_reduced.pdf
Free Resources
Company Formations On The Rise Again
Free Resources
Microfinance Goes Where Banks Fear to Tread
Small businesses are turning to nontraditional lenders as banks reject many loan applications following the credit crunch
Microfinance lenders, originally geared to helping the disenfranchised, are providing more financing to small businesses that can’t get bank loans.
While microfinance represents a tiny fraction of the U.S. credit market, it’s growing fast. The industry group Opportunity Finance Network says 56 percent of microfinance organizations last year saw increases in loan applications. Most likely to get funding were “people who were very strong small business owners who in the past would have received financing [from banks],” says Elaine Edgcomb, who studies microfinance at the Aspen Institute.
Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jun2010/sb20100623_254150.htm?link_position=link1
Relevant links: www.microfunding.co.uk
Free Resources
