Insolvency practitioners are warning that banks are forcing entrepreneurs and family-run firms to take second mortgages on their homes and offer personal guarantees before agreeing to provide business loans.
Many banks also charged penal rates of interest or refused to extend loans to small businesses unless they agreed to offer their personal assets as security, and in particular their main home.
A leading UK based accounting software company can today reveal that year on year; accountants are increasingly leaning towards the Conservatives, with nearly half of voters now backing the Tories, whilst Labour falls further behind.
The Forum of Private Business (FPB) is warning that freight transport firms, and businesses which provide their employees with company cars, are most at risk from prosecution under the Corporate Manslaughter Act, which comes into force on 6 April 2008.
Monday 28th April 2008, BT Convention Centre, Liverpool
The annual Business Convention hosted by the British Chambers of Commerce is the ultimate gathering of business, government and skills leaders. This is the year’s essential business, policy and trade event with excellent networking opportunities for business leaders and policy makers. Delegates will hear from international and UK business leaders on how they have applied a creative entrepreneurial approach to grow their businesses into global companies.
The convention will provide an understanding of future market trends from the most successful budding entrepreneurs and show how to support the next generation of British business leaders. To register with the special rate for Business Matters readers, please email offers@bmmagazine.co.uk
One of the fastest growing sales and marketing focused business forums in the world launch an improved fee-free service today, aiming to save small to medium sized businesses from all over the world up to thousands of pounds a year each.
177 years ago this month, the south-east of England was aflame as farm workers rioted. Under the leadership of the mysterious ‘Captain Swing’, they launched an orgy of burning and destruction across the countryside.
‘Most small businesses fail in their first year’. It’s a stark warning often cited by successful business leaders before they outline the secrets of their own success. But worryingly it is also a warning grounded in fact.
A study by leading insurer AXA has revealed that, despite the introduction of age discrimination legislation in 2006, ageism is still rife in today’s workplace, with thousands of retirees reporting experiencing pressure to quit their job by their employers. In addition, UK plc could face a collective compensation bill of over £45m if employers are taken to tribunal for age-related cases.
New research carried out by the Small Business Research Trust (SBRT), in conjunction with the Forum of Private Business (FPB), shows that smaller firms are bearing the brunt of the credit crunch. The FPB believes that barriers to growth faced by small businesses, in particular the burden of tax, red tape and late payment, must be urgently addressed.
The idea that many people work from home to spend more time with their children has been called into question by new research from leading broadband supplier UK Online, which found that greater flexibility and less commuting were actually the driving factors among the small business community.
Remember the boom in stockmarket flotations, at the end of the last century and the start of this one? That was the time when companies came to the stockmarket for its IPO – Initial Public Offering – armed with a prospectus, a narrative, a prominent bank to manage the offering, and a cabal of venture capitalists hidden off-stage, sniggering, rubbing their hands, and revving the engine of their getaway vehicle. For civilians and non-City people, in a week dominated by all-too-credible stories about economic cataclysm and global recession, that may seem a long time ago. The biggest IPO in history, for instance – what and when was that? AT&T in 2000? Google in 2004?
It’s said that Clive Sinclair, the man who developed the prototype of the Amstrad PC, once tried to explain the computer’s technical specifications to Alan Sugar. ‘I don’t care if they have rubber bands in them,’ replied Sugar, the Amstrad boss, ‘as long as they work.’
If you, like me, are the kind of person who hides away when the video cameras come out, you might well ask, why on earth would you want video content on your company website?
The reason why I’m recommending that you think differently today is because I believe that 1. video content is the future for business websites and that 2. business websites with video content attract more customers and drive higher sales.
You may have heard about franchising but would you like to know more? Well, it does what it is says on the tin – franchising is being in business for yourself but not by yourself. What is inside the tin? What is a franchise? What is involved in researching the marketplace? What about the finances? What can franchising do for me?
Firstly, here are the key industry statistics taken from the latest NatWest/bfa Franchise Survey. (bfa stands for British Franchise Association – the voluntary self-regulating body for the franchise industry.) You may be surprised by the scale and scope of the industry.
Jo Russell talks to Tim Richards, the CEO of the Vue Cinema group about how he left the Hollywood party world to start his own cinema group above a shop in Chiswick.
