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A little help from Germany?
12th Nov 2011
The excitement continues in the Eurozone and it seems that Europe has stalled until the issues are fixed or until they destroy the euro. But what exactly are the issues? Many economists say it is a result of the fixed exchange rates inherent in a monetary union, that does not also have a fiscal union…
Continue reading…The Art of Negotiation
1st Nov 2011
An old friend of mine who has done business extensively in both Greece and Italy used to say that the real negotiations in these cultures only started after the contract had been signed. The move by George Papandreou the Greek prime minister looks quite shrewd to me, and is an interesting lesson in different negotiation…
SME Financing
20th Oct 2011
The issue of financing SME and particularly early stage SME, which are potentially high growth, has been around for centuries. It is still a hot media topic today and one that the politicians are starting to get excited about. Despite various government schemes there is little to suggest that any new financing innovation has yet…
The Bank Appeals Process
13th Oct 2011
In April of this year the UK banks introduced a system that allows small businesses to appeal against decisions to turn down their loan applications. This new process followed political pressure and figures from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). The FSB’s research showed that 16% of small businesses were looking to borrow money and…
Creative Destruction
7th Oct 2011
Capitalism in one form or another now dominates the economic order of the world. A few countries like North Korea still persist with forms of communism but even the mighty China is essentially capitalist. One of the key features of capitalism is its ability to bring in change. Old ways of working, old organisational structures…
Debt
29th Sep 2011
Debt is still dominating the economic news and the economic policy agenda. The trends in debt are interesting and I want to look at the performance of the UK in the context of Greece (not good) and Germany (good). There are two measures to consider: First the budget deficit (Deficit): how much governments are spending…
Venture Capital Funds
16th Sep 2011
Just back from a business breakfast meeting where the subject was access to finance. As usual I find I always get something interesting from these meetings and today there was information on the performance of venture capital funds. Venture Capital Funds (VC) usually have a finite life of 10 years: 5 years to invest the…
A useful Quango?
5th Sep 2011
It seems very unlikely that the Coalition Government will borrow to try and stimulate the economy instead the private sector will need to produce growth but what will the Government do to try and help? NESTA is a government created “quango”, funded principally via the National Lottery, but soon to become a registered charity. According…
Conference
31st Aug 2011
The end of the summer is in sight and as we move into autumn it is time for a few animal spirits to kick in and start countering the pessimism we have seen over the summer. Conferences are a great way to invigorate a market. New ideas; new products and people talking about their hopes…
What is wrong?
23rd Aug 2011
The run on the Northern Rock started on Friday 14th September 2007 and was arguably the “public” start of the credit crunch here in the UK. It was a year before Lehman Brothers went down and just a month or so after the 9 August 2007 which day marked the start of the seizure in…