Doing business with big corporates will almost always have its challenges for smaller companies, but the credit risk and supply chain risk are rarely issues that keep entrepreneurs awake at night. These large entities can be excessively demanding and have a reputation both for slow payment and for exploiting the imbalance of power with their SME trading partners, but the
The rallying call in many business transactions is ‘caveat emptor’, let the buyer beware, and most especially with M&A transactions where assets can be less than they seem, the liabilities greater than expected and the future prospects dimmer than represented. But, how often is the buyer a cause for deep due diligence, always provided they can demonstrate that they have
Ever since the modern insolvency era began with the passing of the Insolvency Act 1986, there has been a debate about how and when the responsibilities of Directors change as their company moves towards a formal insolvency. In broad terms, the mantra has been that they owe their primary duty to the shareholders until an insolvency filing becomes inevitable, after
With the economic climate as it has been over the last few years, it is no surprise that there are plenty of people struggling with debts. However, there is still too much of a stigma about going into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), filing for bankruptcy or taking advantage of one of the many options for re-setting out finances and
Business energy price cap With the appointment of Liz Truss as Prime Minister, business owners have waited with baited breath to find out what, if any, support would become available for their spiralling energy bills. Yesterday they received an answer in the form of a cut on the wholesale price of energy for businesses by more than half for the next
The covid loan schemes The government’s speedy launch of the various Coronavirus Business Support loan schemes when the pandemic struck in 2020 was one of the most important planks in the raft of measures intended to prevent viable businesses from failing as Covid ravaged the UK economy. By May 2021 when the schemes closed to new applications, a total of
