Every business has one thing in common and that is the need for cash. Even charitable organizations need a steady and constant flow of donations in order to keep the lights burning. Cash flow is simply the grease that lubricates the machine and allows it to function properly, but when the machine runs dry it can slow down or grind to halt causing pain and misery for those working in it.Shangri La for any business (and their bankers) is when cash flow becomes so predictable that the business seems to run itself and profits are at a level that supports the owner’s lifestyle well beyond his actual needs.What about the company that is on a growth trajectory and is pouring every cent back into the company to support its growth and pursuit of new business? The orders are coming in at a faster and faster pace which should be a good thing and new customer relationships are being formed which should lead to a solid stream of new orders in the future. So what’s the problem you ask? The problem is when you get an order you have to purchase materials and pay people to fill the order. For example, it may take 14 days or longer from the time the order comes in until the product is shipped, and you have not yet received any payment from the customer. Once the product ships and the invoice is created, your customer has 30 days to make payment and in all this time you have not received a penny, yet you had to meet payroll 3 times, purchase materials, and pay for the other items necessary to run your business. So even though the growth seems great, you are feeling the cash flow crunch of keeping up with orders as they accelerate in number and perhaps even size.Your banker hears your story and he gives you a line of credit that seems small but you’ll take it because you need every penny right now and you don’t want to upset a customer by turning them away or shipping late due to a cash flow issue. This line of credit gives you some temporary relief which you needed but you already see the trouble ahead if the growth continues. That’s right, you max out the credit line to get caught up and fill orders but can barely meet the minimum payments required by the bank.But how can this be since the company is growing so much and revenues keep increasing? Well it all goes back to the fact that it takes you at least 45 days to get paid from the time the order comes in, and that is if all your customers are paying on time. With some quick analysis you may discover that your “turn” is something approaching 60 days or even beyond. Ask any of your employees if they would wait 60 days for a paycheck! (Actually, I take that back, do not ask since they may think something is wrong with the company and walk out.) For a mature company with a slow growth rate the waiting period is not a problem since they will simply access their line of credit and pay it down as their invoices are paid without the worry of unexpected or unpredictable orders. In addition they will also be taking advantage of quick pay discounts from their suppliers. Missing supplier discounts can be no small deal since I personally know of a distributor who takes the savings from quick pay discounts as his annual bonus since he sees it as a reflection of his good management. This amounts to a few hundred thousand dollars per year for this owner. Not to shabby for saving 2% from his suppliers on products that were already planned for purchase. For a growing company, missing the opportunity to save 2% from supplier can be very painful, as the need for cash increases with each new order yet you are still waiting for payment from previous orders and the line of credit at the bank is maxed out.The bank really does not like this scenario because they view it as a management problem and therefore a risk issue. You have taken short term money (bank line of credit) and turned it into long term financing by maxing out your line with no real hope of paying it back or down anytime soon even if the bank has a clean-up provision, which would require you to pay the line off annually. The bad news is simply this: Banks don’t like you. Banks think you are too risky because with strong growth you might blow-up at any second. It’s as if bankers had a choice they would never board an airplane until it had leveled off at 30,000 feet and would parachute out before the initial decent thus avoiding the risks associated with fast acceleration at take-off and the possibility of a hard or crash landing. Of course this is hyperbole when I say they don’t like you when the reality is they simply just prefer to lend to mature companies. They understand your situation and know most companies have to go through growth cycles to reach maturity, they just don’t want to participate in the risk. Your banker is your friend he is just a friend that does not like you right now but you should continue to pursue a strong relationship with your banker since it can be so much more meaningful than just a service provider who makes loans.So now what? You have orders piling up, a maxed out credit line, a banker who wants his money back and won’t lend more, discounts you are unable to take advantage of from suppliers, another payroll is due and the bank account is looking a little thin. Do not despair because you have the most important asset in the business world, and that of course is your customers and their orders that result in invoices. You are now a candidate for cash flow financing. In fact, you were a candidate before it got this serious, but this scenario helps illustrate the point. You have a growing asset on your balance sheet and that is your accounts receivable, but you cannot feed your family on invoices, only cash will solve that problem. So we need to liquidate your accounts receivable and move it to the cash column and one of the easiest ways to this is by selling them.In today’s financial marketplace you have several choices when it comes to cash-flow financing. I have already touched on the most traditional form and that is a bank line of credit secured by your account receivables or in some cases it may be an unsecured line with only your signature to back it up. Next you have bank sponsored accounts receivable financing which will vary somewhat from bank to bank with most banks not offering this type of financing except through a third party partner. This could be a viable option for the business I have discussed here and it would look something like this:Transaction sizes are typically: $10,000 – $5,000,000Advances: up to 90% of eligible accounts receivableServices (will vary): customer credit reviews both new and existingInvoice processing and mailingCollection ServicesManagement Reports provided to youFees: Typically 1-3% of the invoice depending on size and your average turn.Operationally you generate one or more invoices and send them to the bank daily in batches and they fund your account at 90% of the total invoice amount within 24hours. Bam! Instead of waiting 30 or more days for your customer to make payment you receive 90% of your money immediately. You have just accelerated your cash flow to within 24 hours and can now use that money to make payroll, take advantage of supplier discounts, purchase inventory, and INCREASE SALES without fear of customer credit issues or late payments. Essentially what you have done is outsource your accounts receivable management process all while getting paid in 24 hours.What happens to the other 10%? This money is usually held in reserve against any unpaid invoices. For example, if you have an outstanding invoice of $1000 that your customer fails to pay within 90-120 days, the bank will use the reserve to receive payment and then try to collect on the account. So the reserve protects both you and the bank by allowing the bank to get paid back and preventing you from having to write a check to the bank because one of your customers failed to pay their invoice.There is a product called Business Manager that works in a similar fashion and is available in a few hundred community banks around the country. Business Manager is a program that allows community banks to purchase the accounts receivable of their commercial and industrial clients while monitoring the performance of those accounts. It is a powerful program for both banks and business with the funding percentage, fees and reserves typically about the same as in the previous example. For the sake of full disclosure, I used to work for the company that created the Business Manager program. I still think it is a great program, especially for small businesses because it allows you to maintain a bank relationship prior to reaching that mature cycle and graduating on to more traditional financing solutions all while receiving funding in 24hours and online access to your reports.Next we have traditional factoring. This is where you sell your invoices to a funding source (the factor) at a discount in return for immediate cash. Advances are typically in the 70% to 95% range of eligible invoices and fees will vary. Often there is no reserve account, instead the factor receives payment directly from your customer and pays you the 5% to 30% remaining minus the fees for the factor. Some factors place a stamp right on the invoice to show the change of address of where payments are to be made and others are able to do it silently by having an overall change of address and payment sent to a lock box. Most businesses prefer the factor to remain silent if possible, so you will want to check with the individual company. In addition, factors can provide funding to companies in the start-up stage to $100,000,000 in sales or more. This is because they are not concerned about your credit, but that of your customers. They will also want invoices that are verifiable and to know that you and your team are solid managers and experienced in your industry. In fact your company may be in a turn-around situation or bankruptcy and a factor may still provide funding because they are looking at your customer, not you.Besides providing funding, a factoring company can also become your outsourced credit department. They will check customer credit quality; set customer credit limits; and provide daily monitoring of credit accounts. In many, if not most cases, today you will have real time access to reports such as accounts receivable aging, collection, and reserve reports. This gives you the ability to monitor your invoices and the average turn which should be decreasing at this point. The factor will also provide collection services and these will vary from company to company with some allowing for customization of the collections process.The common thread between the different programs available is the conversion of your account receivables to cash by a funding source, whether it’s a bank or private entity. Check the exact terms and fees and be sure to be aware of what your responsibilities will be to the funding source. Cash flow financing may provide the needed solution for growing companies or companies that need a cash injection to make it through a turn-around.
Tag Archives: finance
Landscape of the Last 20 Years’ Infrastructural Financing in India
In this article following two major points are discussed to understand the whole scenario.(1) Trend and Initiative of the Budgetary Support and Institutional Borrowings -The system of managing and financing infrastructural facilities has been changing significantly since the mid-eighties. The Eighth Plan (1992-97) envisaged cost recovery to be built into the financing system. This has further been reinforced during the Ninth Plan period (1997-2002) with a substantial reduction in budgetary allocations for infrastructure development. A strong case has been made for making the public agencies accountable and financially viable. Most of the infrastructure projects are to be undertaken through institutional finance rather than budgetary support. The state level organisations responsible for providing infrastructural services, metropolitan and other urban development agencies are expected to make capital investments on their own, besides covering the operational costs for their infrastructural services. The costs of borrowing have gone up significantly for all these agencies over the years. This has come in their way of their taking up schemes that are socially desirable schemes but are financially less or non-remunerative. Projects for the provision of water, sewerage and sanitation facilities etc., which generally have a long gestation period and require a substantial component of subsidy, have, thus, received a low priority in this changed policy perspective.Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO), set up in the sixties by the Government of India to support urban development schemes, had tried to give an impetus to infrastructural projects by opening a special window in the late eighties. Availability of loans from this window, generally at less than the market rate, was expected to make state and city level agencies, including the municipalities, borrow from Housing and Urban Development Corporation. This was more so for projects in cities and towns with less than a million populations since their capacity to draw upon internal resources was limited.Housing and Urban Development Corporation finances even now up to 70 per cent of the costs in case of public utility projects and social infrastructure. For economic and commercial infrastructure, the share ranges from 50 per cent for the private agencies to 80 per cent for public agencies. The loan is to be repaid in quarterly installments within a period of 10 to 15 years, except for the private agencies for whom the repayment period is shorter. The interest rates for the borrowings from Housing and Urban Development Corporation vary from 15 per cent for utility infrastructure of the public agencies to 19.5 per cent for commercial infrastructure of the private sector. The range is much less than what used to be at the time of opening the infrastructure window by Housing and Urban Development Corporation. This increase in the average rate of interest and reduction in the range is because its average cost of borrowing has gone up from about 7 per cent to 14 per cent during the last two and a half decade.Importantly, Housing and Urban Development Corporation loans were available for upgrading and improving the basic services in slums at a rate lower than the normal schemes in the early nineties. These were much cheaper than under similar schemes of the World Bank. However, such loans are no longer available. Also, earlier the Corporation was charging differential interest rates from local bodies in towns and cities depending upon their population size. For urban centres with less than half a million population, the rate was 14.5 per cent; for cities with population between half to one million, it was 17 per cent; and a huge number of cities, it was 18 per cent. No special concessional rate was, however, charged for the towns with less than a hundred or fifty thousand population that are in dire need of infrastructural improvement, as discussed above.It is unfortunate, however, that even this small bias in favour of smaller cities has now been given up. Further, Housing and Urban Development Corporation was financing up to 90 per cent of the project cost in case of infrastructural schemes for ‘economically weaker sections’ which, too, has been discontinued in recent years.Housing and Urban Development Corporation was and continues to be the premier financial institution for disbursing loans under the Integrated Low Cost Sanitation Scheme of the government. The loans as well as the subsidy components for different beneficiary categories under the scheme are released through the Corporation. The amount of funds available through this channel has gone down drastically in the nineties.Given the stoppage of equity support from the government, increased cost of resource mobilisation, and pressure from international agencies to make infrastructural financing commercially viable, Housing and Urban Development Corporation has responded by increasing the average rate of interest and bringing down the amounts advanced to the social sectors. Most significantly, there has been a reduction in the interest rate differentiation, designed for achieving social equity.An analysis of infrastructural finances disbursed through Housing and Urban Development Corporation shows that the development authorities and municipal corporations that exist only in larger urban centres operate have received more than half of the total amount. The agencies like Water Supply and Sewerage Boards and Housing Boards, that have the entire state within their jurisdiction, on the other hand, have received altogether less than one third of the total loans. Municipalities with less than a hundred thousand population or local agencies with weak economic base often find it difficult to approach Housing and Urban Development Corporation for loans. This is so even under the central government schemes like the Integrated Development of Small and Medium Towns, routed through Housing and Urban Development Corporation, that carry a subsidy component. These towns are generally not in a position to obtain state government’s guarantee due to their uncertain financial position. The central government and the Reserve Bank of India have proposed restrictions on many of the states for giving guarantees to local bodies and para-statal agencies, in an attempt to ensure fiscal discipline.Also, the states are being persuaded to register a fixed percentage of the amount guaranteed by them as a liability in their accounting system. More importantly, in most of the states, only the para-statal agencies and municipal corporations have been given state guarantee with the total exclusion of smaller municipal bodies. Understandably, getting bank guarantee is even more difficult, specially, for the urban centres in less developed states and all small and medium towns.The Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (ILFS), established in 1989, are coming up as an important financial institution in recent years. It is a private sector financial intermediary wherein the Government of India owns a small equity share. Its activities have more or less remained confined to development of industrial-townships, roads and highways where risks are comparatively less. It basically undertakes project feasibility studies and provides a variety of financial as well as engineering services. Its role, therefore, is that of a merchant banker rather than of a mere loan provider so far as infrastructure financing is considered and its share in the total infrastructural finance in the country remains limited.Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services has helped local bodies, para-statal agencies and private organisations in preparing feasibility reports of commercially viable projects, detailing out the pricing and cost recovery mechanisms and establishing joint venture companies called Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV).Further, it has become equity holders in these companies along with other public and private agencies, including the operator of the BOT project. The role of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services may, thus, be seen as a promoter of a new perspective of development and a participatory arrangement for project financing. It is trying to acquire the dominant position for the purpose of influencing the composition of infrastructural projects and the system of their financing in the country.Mention must be made here of the Financial Institutions Reform and Expansion (FIRE) Programme, launched under the auspices of the USAID. Its basic objective is to enhance resource availability for commercially viable infrastructure projects through the development of domestic debt market. Fifty per cent of the project cost is financed from the funds raised in US capital market under Housing Guaranty fund. This has been made available for a long period of thirty years at an interest rate of 6 percent, thanks to the guarantee from the US-Congress.The risk involved in the exchange rate fluctuation due to the long period of capital borrowing is being mitigated by a swapping arrangement through the Grigsby Bradford and Company and Government Finance Officers’ Association for which they would charge an interest rate of 6 to 7 percent. The interest rate for the funds from US market, thus, does not work out as much cheaper than that raised internally.The funds under the programme are being channelled through Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services and Housing and Urban Development Corporation who are expected to raise a matching contribution for the project from the domestic debt market. A long list of agenda for policy reform pertaining to urban governance, land management, pricing of services etc. have been proposed for the two participating institutions. For providing loans under the programme, the two agencies are supposed to examine the financial viability or bankability of the projects. This, it is hoped, would ensure financial discipline on the part of the borrowing agencies like private and public companies, municipal bodies, para-statal agencies etc. as also the state governments that have to stand guarantee to the projects. The major question, here, however is whether funds from these agencies would be available for social sectors schemes that have a long gestation period and low commercial viability.Institutional funds are available also under Employees State Insurance Scheme and Employer’s Provident Fund. These have a longer maturity period and are, thus, more suited for infrastructure financing. There are, however, regulations requiring the investment to be channeled in government securities and other debt instruments in a ‘socially desirable’ manner. Government, however, is seriously considering proposals to relax these stipulations so that the funds can be made available for earning higher returns, as per the principle of commercial profitability.There are several international actors that are active in the infrastructure sector like the Governments of United Kingdom (through Department for International Development), Australia and Netherlands. These have taken up projects pertaining to provision of infrastructure and basic amenities under their bilateral co-operation programmes. Their financial support, although very small in comparison with that coming from other agencies discussed below, has generally gone into projects that are unlikely to be picked up by private sector and may have problems of cost recovery. World Bank, Asian Development Bank, OECF (Japan), on the other hand, are the agencies that have financed infrastructure projects that are commercially viable and have the potential of being replicated on a large scale. The share of these agencies in the total funds into infrastructure sector is substantial. The problem, here, however, is that the funds have generally been made available when the borrowing agencies are able to involve private entrepreneurs in the project or mobilise certain stipulated amount from the capital market. This has proved to be a major bottleneck in the launching of a large number of projects. Several social sector projects have failed at different stages of formulation or implementation due to their long payback period and uncertain profit potential. These projects also face serious difficulties in meeting the conditions laid down by the international agencies.(2) Trend and Initiative of the Borrowings by Government and Public Undertakings from Capital Market -A strong plea has been made for mobilising resources from the capital market for infrastructural investment. Unfortunately, there are not many projects in the country that have been perceived as commercially viable, for which funds can easily be lifted from the market.The weak financial position and revenue sources of the state undertakings in this sector make this even more difficult. As a consequence, innovative credit instruments have been designed to enable the local bodies tap the capital market.Bonds, for example, are being issued through institutional arrangements in such a manner that the borrowing agency is required to pledge or escrow certain buoyant sources of revenue for debt servicing. This is a mechanism by which the debt repayment obligations are given utmost priority and kept independent of the overall financial position of the borrowing agency. It ensures that a trustee would monitor the debt servicing and that the borrowing agency would not have access to the pledged resources until the loan is repaid.The most important development in the context of investment in infrastructure and amenities is the emergence of credit rating institutions in the country. With the financial markets becoming global and competitive and the borrowers’ base increasingly diversified, investors and regulators prefer to rely on the opinion of these institutions for their decisions. The rating of the debt instruments of the corporate bodies, financial agencies and banks are currently being done by the institutions like Information and Credit Rating Agency of India (ICRA), Credit Analysis and Research (CARE) and Credit Rating Information Services of India Limited (CRISIL) etc. The rating of the urban local bodies has, however, been done so far by only Information and Credit Rating Agency of India, that too only since 1995-96.Given the controls of the state government on the borrowing agencies, it is not easy for any institution to assess the ‘unctioning and managerial capabilities’ of these agencies in any meaningful manner so as to give a precise rating. Furthermore, the ‘present financial position’ of an agency in no way reflects its strength or managerial efficiency. There could be several reasons for the revenue income, expenditure and budgetary surplus to be high other than its administrative efficiency. Large sums being received as grants or as remuneration for providing certain services could explain that. The surplus in the current or capital account cannot be a basis for cross-sectional or temporal comparison since the user charges permitted by the state governments may vary.More important than obtaining the relevant information, there is the problem of choosing a development perspective. The rating institutions would have difficulties in deciding whether to go by measures of financial performance like total revenue including grants or build appropriate indicators to reflect managerial efficiency. One can possibly justify the former on the ground that for debt servicing, what one needs is high income, irrespective of its source or managerial efficiency. This would, however, imply taking a very short-term view of the situation. Instead, if the rating agency considers level of managerial efficiency, structure of governance or economic strength in long-term context, it would be able to support the projects that may have debt repayment problems in the short run but would succeed in the long run.The indicators that it may then consider would pertain to the provisions in state legislation regarding decentralisation, stability of the government in the city and the state, per capita income of the population, level of industrial and commercial activity etc. All these have a direct bearing on the prospect of increasing user charges in the long run. The body, for example, would be able to generate higher revenues through periodic revision of user-charges, if per capita income levels of its residents are high.The rating agencies have, indeed, taken a medium or long-term view, as may be noted from the Rating Reports of various public undertakings in the recent past. These have generally based their rating on a host of quantitative and qualitative factors, including those pertaining to the policy perspective at the state or local level and not simply a few measurable indicators.The only problem is that it has neither detailed out all these factors nor specified the procedures by which the qualitative dimensions have been brought within the credit rating framework, without much ambiguity.In recent time India has made significant progress in mobilizing private investment for infrastructure. Infrastructure finance nearly doubled in the last decade and is expected to grow further under the government’s 12th Plan (2012-17), which calls for investments in the sector of about US$ 1 trillion, with a contribution from the private sector of at least half.Still, it is not enough to draw final conclusion due to following reasons:(1) Meeting the ambitious targets fully, will be challenging in long run,
(2) Major changes are needed in the way banks appraise and finance projects,
(3) The government has taken a number of recent initiatives to expand private investment in infrastructure, but their impact has not yet been felt.But to consider last 20 years, the progress is steady and satisfactory enough.
Top Online Masters in Finance Programs
Most universities today offer the Masters in Finance as an option within the structure of the MBA program. Schools of business usually have several areas of concentration to choose from in the second year of a two year, full time MBA course of study. At most schools the most popular major for the MBA is Finance. The list of schools below all include finance as an MBA option and in some cases offer additional graduate level options for degrees related to finance, either within the context of corporate operations or as an analytical profession. Some universities offer a Masters in Financial Mathematics for students interested in the complexities of analytics or in a PhD program that specializes in the technology of business finance. The schools listed below all have degree programs designed for career advancement in the business world.New England College of Business and Finance has been in existence since 1909 when it was founded as the New England Banking Institute. Over the years it has evolved from a finance training institution to a full fledged degree granting college accredited by the New England Association of Schools & Colleges. The Master of Finance degree includes eleven advanced courses that cover International Finance, Applied Quantitative Methods, Enterprise Risk Management, Portfolio Management and several other areas of the academic discipline. The college has a solid background in educating aspiring professionals in the banking and finance industries.Baker College offers the online MBA in Finance with a program that includes thirty three credit hours devoted to business studies and an additional twenty credit hours for classes in the finance specialization. Among the business core courses are classes in Research & Statistics for Managers, Accounting for the Contemporary Manager and Management Information Systems, so the analytic tools and IT requirements for a Masters in Finance are covered in the first section of the program. Advanced finance classes include Public Finance and International Business Finance.University of Liverpool has ventured into the international online education field with its online MBA program. Since the program was accredited by the European Foundation for Management Development it has developed a student body drawn from over 175 nations. The MBA in Finance and Accounting is delivered in modules, with each module consisting of classes that increase in complexity. The University provides e-books or printed textbooks at no charge. Finance modules include Investment Strategies, Financial Reporting, Business Finance and Advanced Managerial Accounting.Kaplan University offers an online Masters of Business Administration with specialization in Finance that can be completed in one year of full time study or two years of part time study. The curriculum includes mergers and acquisitions, international business finance, foreign exchange risk, hedging strategies, and global positioning of assets. Kaplan also offers a MBA in Entrepreneurship that delves into the creative sources and uses of capital involved in a startup.Northeastern University offers a MBA in Finance online through its School of Business. This area of concentration covers mergers and acquisitions, licensing, joint ventures, and IPOs from a management perspective. There is also a MBA in Entrepreneurship that includes some of these advanced courses. In addition Northeastern offers an online Master of Science in Finance that focuses entirely on the complexities of accounting and finance, quantitative and modeling methods, and international finance structures for global businesses.