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© Business Money Ltd 2006 |
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The 2005 Business Money All-Asset Finance ConferenceThe CBI Conference Centre, London, 12 April 2005On 12 April the Business Money team descended upon the CBI Conference Centre for the second annual all-asset finance conference. An impressive delegate list once again and the prospect of a day’s discussion and networking that would be beneficial to all concerned had us all in good spirits and ready for what lay ahead. Our first arrival, who had allowed a prudent hour for traffic, beat other delegates by a considerable margin, but given that Grant Jones was our first presenter of the morning and that he is not a man to take his duties lightly it was good to see him there in good time to set up. The enthusiasm was evident in his presentation as Grant got us off to a lively start with a rapid-fire, hugely well informed delivery on pensions and their impact on acquisitions and turnaround. This was voted one of the best presentations of the meeting and no surprise – though no reflection on the others. Andrew Knight and Chris Harlowe of Speechly Bircham then gave us the legal update on rulings affecting all-asset finance over the past 12 months in Europe and these were considerable. Andrew and Chris run as a relay team and both made first class presentations and given the high technical content they scored well with a sophisticated audience. ‘The Enterprise Act in action’ was then the province of Karl Holmes and Andrew Sheridan of Baker Tilly. A very learned delivery and one which went on to address other areas of legislation such as the Financial Collateral Act, the Environmental Directive and the Pension Act. Legislation will continue to affect the industry and it is important that companies position themselves to adapt to that change. David Hampson, managing director, Henry Butcher & Company, followed the coffee break talking to us on valuing inventory for lending purposes. He covered areas such as identifying and mitigating risk and recovering your cash with some interesting observations on the obsolescence of stock. We then moved to the ‘Open Forum Debate’ on ‘the law commission proposals – registration’. Despite the session having been shortened, due to a slight overrun, Mike Woollard from Hammonds was able to tell us a great deal about the changes. He did a first class job in the time available although there was more clarification than debate as time had already dictated the answers to a lot of the questions that may have come up. Lunch followed, providing some good networking time and an opportunity to touch base with the offi ce via mobiles, PDAs, laptops – all of which were out in force. Lunch appeared to meet with approval and whilst delegates ate and relaxed in between sessions I was able to prepare the room for the afternoon session and our next speaker, Nils Blythe, the BBC business correspondent. I thoroughly enjoyed his resume of developments in the world of business over the past 50 years together with its implications for the future. I found his delivery on the price of computer memory of particular interest. He explained how, over a relatively short space of time the price per megabyte of RAM has gone from the cost of a house to the cost of a pint, to the cost of a polo today! A frightening comparison in what was a very professional post-lunch session, as you would expect. We then had a look at two case studies and heard deliveries by the men who had made them happen. First to the stage was Paul Beveridge of Venture Structured Finance, who described a complex case, one enabling an existing customer to make an acquisition and his only complaint seemed to be that the client repaid their borrowing too fast! A nice problem but we all know what he means. Jeremy Harrison of Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance followed him. He also made a first class presentation on a complex structured finance case where £32m was raised with £25m (£6m available against stock) coming from LTSBCF, plus £6.5m mezzanine from 3i and the remainder, £0.5m, coming from management equity. This was one of the high spots of the conference, two seasoned and sophisticated players both describing how they discharged the essential role of the all-asset financier – making the deal happen. The message to emerge loud and clear from these two case studies is that whilst in the early days of all-asset finance all we ever heard was ‘receivables led’ we are now looking at genuine all-asset finance with some meaty and quite long standing term loans being included. We then presented a hero to the company; Phillip Kerle of Demica flew in from Dublin, made a top class and fully detailed presentation on the strategy of Demica and the benefits of securitisation – a case he supported with an immense amount of well researched data. He then had to hop back on the plane to Dublin prior to disappearing on a foreign trip the next day. I have to thank Demica from the bottom of my heart; we were left with this slot at short notice and the willingness and mood they demonstrated to rally round to help us was much appreciated by all present. As last year, we closed with Paul McGowan of Hilco. Paul enjoys not only immense personal popularity but a great deal of respect for the manner in which he can apply Hilco’s particular brand of alchemy to retrieving situations which at fi rst glance do not appear to have any veins of gold running through them whatsoever. As one delegate commented: “Why on earth does he share his secrets with us?” We are thankful to him for sharing the secrets, but putting them into action is, of course, another matter altogether. An enjoyable day and an incredibly high powered audience who, given their immense levels of expertise in their industry, are always a challenge to present to. We look forward to welcoming them all again to the all-asset finance conference in 2006 when, no doubt, the sands will have shifted once more.
Editor
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