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Alternative Financing Vs. Venture Capital: Which Option Is Best for Boosting Working Capital?

There are several potential financing options available to cash-strapped businesses that need a healthy dose of working capital. A bank loan or line of credit is often the first option that owners think of – and for businesses that qualify, this may be the best option.

In today’s uncertain business, economic and regulatory environment, qualifying for a bank loan can be difficult – especially for start-up companies and those that have experienced any type of financial difficulty. Sometimes, owners of businesses that don’t qualify for a bank loan decide that seeking venture capital or bringing on equity investors are other viable options.

But are they really? While there are some potential benefits to bringing venture capital and so-called “angel” investors into your business, there are drawbacks as well. Unfortunately, owners sometimes don’t think about these drawbacks until the ink has dried on a contract with a venture capitalist or angel investor – and it’s too late to back out of the deal.

Different Types of Financing

One problem with bringing in equity investors to help provide a working capital boost is that working capital and equity are really two different types of financing.

Working capital – or the money that is used to pay business expenses incurred during the time lag until cash from sales (or accounts receivable) is collected – is short-term in nature, so it should be financed via a short-term financing tool. Equity, however, should generally be used to finance rapid growth, business expansion, acquisitions or the purchase of long-term assets, which are defined as assets that are repaid over more than one 12-month business cycle.

But the biggest drawback to bringing equity investors into your business is a potential loss of control. When you sell equity (or shares) in your business to venture capitalists or angels, you are giving up a percentage of ownership in your business, and you may be doing so at an inopportune time. With this dilution of ownership most often comes a loss of control over some or all of the most important business decisions that must be made.

Sometimes, owners are enticed to sell equity by the fact that there is little (if any) out-of-pocket expense. Unlike debt financing, you don’t usually pay interest with equity financing. The equity investor gains its return via the ownership stake gained in your business. But the long-term “cost” of selling equity is always much higher than the short-term cost of debt, in terms of both actual cash cost as well as soft costs like the loss of control and stewardship of your company and the potential future value of the ownership shares that are sold.

Alternative Financing Solutions

But what if your business needs working capital and you don’t qualify for a bank loan or line of credit? Alternative financing solutions are often appropriate for injecting working capital into businesses in this situation. Three of the most common types of alternative financing used by such businesses are:

1. Full-Service Factoring – Businesses sell outstanding accounts receivable on an ongoing basis to a commercial finance (or factoring) company at a discount. The factoring company then manages the receivable until it is paid. Factoring is a well-established and accepted method of temporary alternative finance that is especially well-suited for rapidly growing companies and those with customer concentrations.

2. Accounts Receivable (A/R) Financing – A/R financing is an ideal solution for companies that are not yet bankable but have a stable financial condition and a more diverse customer base. Here, the business provides details on all accounts receivable and pledges those assets as collateral. The proceeds of those receivables are sent to a lockbox while the finance company calculates a borrowing base to determine the amount the company can borrow. When the borrower needs money, it makes an advance request and the finance company advances money using a percentage of the accounts receivable.

3. Asset-Based Lending (ABL) – This is a credit facility secured by all of a company’s assets, which may include A/R, equipment and inventory. Unlike with factoring, the business continues to manage and collect its own receivables and submits collateral reports on an ongoing basis to the finance company, which will review and periodically audit the reports.

In addition to providing working capital and enabling owners to maintain business control, alternative financing may provide other benefits as well:

It’s easy to determine the exact cost of financing and obtain an increase.
Professional collateral management can be included depending on the facility type and the lender.
Real-time, online interactive reporting is often available.
It may provide the business with access to more capital.
It’s flexible – financing ebbs and flows with the business’ needs.
It’s important to note that there are some circumstances in which equity is a viable and attractive financing solution. This is especially true in cases of business expansion and acquisition and new product launches – these are capital needs that are not generally well suited to debt financing. However, equity is not usually the appropriate financing solution to solve a working capital problem or help plug a cash-flow gap.

A Precious Commodity

Remember that business equity is a precious commodity that should only be considered under the right circumstances and at the right time. When equity financing is sought, ideally this should be done at a time when the company has good growth prospects and a significant cash need for this growth. Ideally, majority ownership (and thus, absolute control) should remain with the company founder(s).

Alternative financing solutions like factoring, A/R financing and ABL can provide the working capital boost many cash-strapped businesses that don’t qualify for bank financing need – without diluting ownership and possibly giving up business control at an inopportune time for the owner. If and when these companies become bankable later, it’s often an easy transition to a traditional bank line of credit. Your banker may be able to refer you to a commercial finance company that can offer the right type of alternative financing solution for your particular situation.

Taking the time to understand all the different financing options available to your business, and the pros and cons of each, is the best way to make sure you choose the best option for your business. The use of alternative financing can help your company grow without diluting your ownership. After all, it’s your business – shouldn’t you keep as much of it as possible?

The Bank Won’t Back Your Business Because You Don’t Have a Backup Plan

The first thing that has to be said about backup plans is that there is a definition of a backup plan that your bank uses for its purposes, and a quite different definition of a backup plan that you’ll want to use for your purposes. Trust me – you don’t want to experience the bank’s “backup plan”. When a bank talks backup plans, it usually means (at least as a first step) your banking relationship being transferred to “Credit & Asset Management” or some equally ominous sounding department that is typically interested in only one thing – getting the bank’s money back as quickly as possible and then sending you on your not-so-merry way. That’s the bank’s idea of a backup plan – commonly referred to in the industry as the “secondary exit” when described in credit papers. As you may have already guessed, this secondary exit usually means selling off your assets and placing your business into liquidation.The first question that the bank asks when considering an application for credit is “Is there an underlying, viable, sustainable business here?” Or, to put it into terms that we have been using throughout this series; “Is this business bankable?” In answering these questions, a great deal of analysis is done and your business is assigned a “PD” or Probability of Default based on the estimated ongoing viability of the business. The PD, expressed as a percentage, is an estimation of the likelihood that you will default on your loans within the next 12 months. If you default, the bank has already calculated what they need to know about what to expect from their “backup plan”. Another measure called the LGD or Loss Given Default would have been calculated for your business and is an estimate of how much the bank stands to lose (also expressed as a percentage) when they move from default to recovery – selling off your assets.The backup plan I’m talking about here is the one you need to have prepared for your business. Preferably, your backup plan will kick into effect long before you start defaulting on your loan repayments. Otherwise, the bank’s backup plan tends to take precedence over yours.So how do you go about putting this backup plan together? There are really four “steps” to putting it all together, and the great thing is, the first step is already nearly done for you. That is, it’s already nearly done if you’ve taken my advice from the first few articles in this series and you are now the proud owner of a business plan that includes a sound risk management plan.Step one is all about measuring the things that you need to measure in order to keep tabs on the key risks you’ve already identified in your risk management plan. Needless to say, it does absolutely no good to identify risks your business might be exposed to and then come up with ways to mitigate those risks if you’re not going to measure key elements of your business (internal factors and external factors) to see whether or not you’re being exposed to those risks on an ongoing basis. So step one is simply to regularly measure how your business is going against the potential risks you’ve identified in your business plan in the “risk management” section.Step two is the evaluation of the things you’ve been measuring. In other words, you need to be able to critically analyze the data you’ve collected and understand the implications of them for your business. This is the most important step in your backup plan, because without it, you cannot progress to step three and four and finish the backup plan. Not to mention, you’re left with a load of useless data that you’ve been collecting to mitigate identified risks to your business and you have no clue what it all means. Proper evaluation is required to see how you’re traveling at avoiding or minimizing the risks, but it also allows you to do step three, which gives you the practical, “what to do” part of your backup plan.Step three is to adapt your business plan in whatever way necessary to improve your business, make your business more successful and ensure the long-term survival of the business as a whole. In short, step three is about “reinventing” your business regularly based on the evaluation (step two) of the data you’ve been measuring (step one) to ensure that you NEVER have to revert to the bank’s backup plan, no matter what. The U.S. Marines have a motto that reminds their troops how to perform in any situation, even in the heat of battle – “improvise, adapt, and overcome”. Now, in business, as I imagine would be the case in war, I think it’s always better to do a lot of planning to reduce the amount of improvising necessary. But you get the point – things don’t always go to plan – that’s why you need the backup plan.These first three steps sound pretty straightforward, pretty simple. But getting it right couldn’t have more profound implications for the survival of your business. And properly thinking out what to measure, how you interpret the data collected, and how to constantly improve how you do business will definitely make your business more bankable. Simple? Maybe. Easy? No way. Even the best business minds in the world know that the first three steps don’t make for a complete backup plan if you don’t include one more step…Step four is to seek out expert advice. You will not be able to run a lasting, successful business without creating relationships with trusted advisers that can help you out from time to time. In fact, having established relationships with key advisers that you trust and are willing to “share” your business with comes in handy in almost every aspect of what I’ve been talking about in this series – from putting together a business plan to creating and updating your backup plan. A business owner that thinks he knows everything he or she needs to know without the assistance of some expert advice from time to time is fooling himself and no one else. He certainly won’t come away from an encounter with a bank without giving them at least one reason not to back his business. Connections with and, to an extent, reliance upon key advisers in key areas should never be considered a weakness but an advantage. Competent, trusted advisers can help even the most talented business owners keep a proper sense of perspective on the “forest” and the “trees” simultaneously.Consider some key areas where a trusted adviser could be helpful:Accountant- Do you have an accountant that can help you understand the numbers, what they mean, what the key drivers of your business are and how to act to improve the bottom line? Or do you have “some guy” that you talk to once a year when you need your taxes done?Solicitor – Do you have a lawyer that knows your business, your industry and your individual situation to the extent that he can look out for you and proactively keep you up to date with legal issues that could potentially impact upon you and your business? Or do you have a solicitor (that you only go to when something has become an emergency) that you know only because he did the conveyancing on your last property purchase?Financial Planner – Is your financial planner creating opportunities for you and growing your investment or retirement portfolio in a manner consistent with your appetite for risk and the plans that you have agreed to in regular consultations? Or is your planner just the guy that helped you set up your self-managed super fund that now consists of a term deposit and the commercial premises you operate your business from?Business Banker – Do you have a business banker that is like a business coach; that understands how to run a business and understands how you run your business in particular? Is he proactively looking after your needs whether or not it means he’ll sell you another product? How often does he call you? Visit your premises? Do you have a business banker or a glorified bank teller?Of course, you don’t really need a backup plan if these four steps sound all too hard. Remember, the bank has a backup plan prepared if you don’t already have one. But the bank won’t back your business if they think that they are going to have nothing to rely on other than selling up your collateral. They want to see that your business has made plans to adapt to adverse circumstances and that you are not so set in your ways that you cannot think of alternative ways to run your business if a problem arises.

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What Are The Greatest Changes In Shopping In Your Lifetime

What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.

As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.

That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.

Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.

Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.

Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.

Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.

That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.

Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.

Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.

My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.

Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.

And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.

All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:

• Farm eggs

• Fresh vegetables

• Cow’s milk

• Freshly baked bread

• Coal for our open fires

Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.

Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.

Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.

Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.

My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.

The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.

Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.

Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.

People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.

In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.

Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.

• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.

• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.

• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.

On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.

Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.

We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.

Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.

My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.

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