Ending the zombie business crisis plaguing the economy would be a cheap and easy way to boost growth, argued insolvency professionals, urging George Osborne to push banks to take the plunge on bad debts and write down the debt to aid any projected recovery.
Around 50,000 firms are thought to have no hope of repaying their loans in full, and are seen by some as a drag on growth, tying up bank and labour resources unproductively. It has been reported that there is in excess of 100,000 others with good growth potential but that are struggling in the weak economy.
The time has finally come whereby
Banks are having to address this issue either aggressively through the
insolvency legislation or through mediation and working with the businesses to
achieve an amicable solution. Whichever approach is taken by banks, the
emphasis will be on business owners to demonstrate that their business can grow
and succeed.
GDP Partnership has been pioneering the mediation route for the
last three years and has achieved many successes from both the perspective of
the borrower and the bank.
Unfortunately the main cause of a lot of
these businesses woes are that they borrowed heavily in the last ten years
against assets which have now fallen dramatically in value, and in this part of
the world it has largely been on property. This fall in asset value has now
caused the borrowing to be unsustainable and significantly impairing their
balance sheets. It is this now unsustainable debt which is holding the company
back from growing and adding value to the greater economy. The net result of this is the banks on many occasions are draining the what was once a progressive business, of any cash to prop up the bad loans in the company. Even more worrying is a trend which has been on-going for the past while is that banks are draining company's of cash to prop up loans that directors of the company took out in their personal names. This is not right and is suffocating the business and any chance of it growing and in many occasions continuing to trade.
An equitable and fair solution to this
problem is for both borrower and lender to share some pain. In many cases there
is an opportunity for the lender to re-base the loan to an affordable level that
the company can service; this level may or may not be equal to the market value
of the asset, however to get the bank to play ball it must be a better proposal
to the nuclear option namely winding the company up and appointing a receiver to sell the assets. If
it can be demonstrated and presented properly that by agreeing to re-base the
debt at a figure which is a better option for the bank than the doomsday
scenario, then most banks today will listen.
In the past few months our team have reached a number of agreements
with the banks on this basis, which is a very positive development. However the health warning here is we need
the banks to move faster and be more transparent in their dealings.
It makes so much sense to approach the
debt problems facing the country with a solutions hat on as opposed to that of
a funeral director. There are now
thousands of zombie companies across the nation from Derry to Cork and unless,
those in this unfortunate position bring the solutions to the banks, their
futures are going to be in serious jeopardy.
From a banking perspective let’s hope the industry becomes a lot more proactive in this regard and takes a more pragmatic view when it comes to writing down the debt, and letting businesses get back on their feet again. We need a more medium to long term approach to be adopted for this to happen.
Conor Devine MRICS
No comments:
Post a Comment