The Insolvency Wave Has Yet To Hit… But…

Equifax data suggests that, while the overall rate of insolvencies in March 2022 was up 5 per cent on last year, construction insolvencies were 28 per cent higher.

Iconic firm Grocon collapsed in 2020 and this year mega-builder ProBuild — with its $5 billion pipeline of work — fell over. Since then, ABD Group, Privium Home, Condev and, most recently, Next, went under. In the first quarter of the year, compared to the same period in 2021, 270 construction companies filled for insolvency, a 21 per cent jump.

Building costs have risen so much that one construction professional says he goes to work every day knowing he’ll “disappoint at least one person”.

Stretched global supply chains have fed into soaring costs for materials. Ongoing border closers boosted a hot labour market, meaning tradespeople have been charging more.

“It’s created a ‘profitless boom’, with many construction companies committed to projects that are no longer financially viable, thanks to major price increases for building materials”

Pivotal, which has built more than 1,500 homes over 15 years, was placed into liquidation on Thursday, following other major firms such as Condev and Probuild earlier this year.

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

Housing Unaffordability Risks Social Cohesion!

The rising cost of housing and a growing wealth imbalance is an emerging social issue that could threaten “social cohesion”.

Purchasing a home in a capital city on a skill-level 4 or 5 income is essentially impossible. Even if you put two of those incomes together maybe you can afford a humble abode at the very, very end of the urban fringe, but you need to get at least up to skill level three (electrician, butchers, mechanics etc) in order to have home ownership as a real, valuable option in your life.

“So what does this mean if we have a U-shaped workforce instead of a bell curve workforce? Well, social cohesion is at risk.”

Countries that have an “extreme U shape” in workforce skill levels (i.e. a high proportion of wealthy people and a high proportion of low-income people) generally see pent-up anger and frustrations bubble into civil unrest.

Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/

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Alt Funders Overtake Banks As SME Cash Flow Is Stretched

A new trend has emerged in the SME lending space, with Australian small businesses more likely to use a non-bank to fund growth rather than their main bank, according to a national survey, via Australian Broker.

Small business owners’ reliance on non-banks is the highest it’s ever been, with 18.7% of SMEs planning to fund revenue growth with such a lender, as charted in the September 2019 SME Growth Index commissioned by Scottish Pacific and drawing data from over 1,000 businesses.

Conversely, business owners planning to fund their growth via their main bank has halved, dropping from 38% in the first year of reporting in 2014 to 18.3% in the most recent data.

The main reason given for turning away from banks, cited by 21.3% of the SMEs, was avoiding having to use property as security against new or refinanced loans, up from 18.7% in September 2018.

Other considerations contributing to the gravitation towards non-banks included reduced compliance paperwork (19.8%), short application times (17.1%), royal commission disclosures (8.8%) and banks’ credit appetite (6.9%).

Of the SME owners relying on non-bank funding, 77% utilise invoice finance, 23% merchant cash advances, 10% peer to peer lending, 9% crowdfunding and 5% other online lending.

Just 2.6% of those surveyed indicated they would not consider using a non-bank lender – down from 4.0% last year.

“[However], the SME sector still has a long way to go in taking advantage of the alternatives available to them,” said Peter Langham, Scottish Pacific CEO.

“Some business owners remain unaware of funding alternatives. [They] are aware of non-bank funding, but don’t fully understand how it works.

“They are too busy to research it, so put this in the ‘too hard’ basket. When they can’t secure bank funding, they just tip their own money in to fund growth.”

For growth SMEs, almost twice as many as in H1 2018 say their cash flow is
worse or significantly worse (21.2%, up from 12.3%). At the same time,
non-growth SMEs reporting worsening cash flow has increased to 17.6%, up from 10% in H1 2018.

According to the survey, 83% of business owners plan to stimulate revenue growth with their own funds.

Small Business Finance Roundtable

The Reserve Bank hosted a roundtable discussion on small business finance today, along with the Australian Banking Association and the Council of Small Business Australia. The roundtable was chaired by Philip Lowe, Governor of the Reserve Bank.

Small businesses are very important for the economy. They generate significant employment growth, drive innovation and boost competition in markets. Access to external finance is an important issue for many small businesses, particularly when they are looking to expand.

Our own SME survey highlights the problems SME’s face in getting finance in the face of the banks focus on mortgage lending.  The latest edition of our report reveals that more than half of small business owners are not getting the financial assistance they require from lenders in Australia to grow their businesses.

The aim of the roundtable was to provide a forum for the discussion of small business lending in Australia. The participants included entrepreneurs from the Reserve Bank’s Small Business Finance Advisory Panel along with representatives from financial institutions, government and the financial regulators.

The challenges faced by small businesses when borrowing were discussed. The entrepreneurs highlighted a number of issues, including:

  • access to lending for start-ups
  • the heavy reliance on secured lending and the role of housing collateral and personal guarantees in lending
  • the loan application process, including the administrative burden
  • the ability to compare products across lenders and to switch lenders.

The participants discussed a range of ideas for addressing these challenges. Financial institutions shared their perspectives and discussed some of the steps that are being taken to address concerns of small business. The roundtable heard some suggestions about how to improve the accessibility of information for small businesses about their financing options. The roundtable also heard from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority regarding the proposed revisions to the bank capital framework that relate to small business lending.

The roundtable discussed some other policy initiatives that are currently underway, including the introduction of comprehensive credit reporting and open banking. Participants agreed that these initiatives could help to improve access to finance, and the Reserve Bank will continue to monitor developments closely.

Background

The Small Business Finance Advisory Panel was established by the Reserve Bank in 1993 and meets annually to discuss issues relating to the provision of finance, as well as the broader economic environment for small businesses. The panel provides valuable information to the Reserve Bank on the financial and economic conditions faced by small businesses in Australia.

The Reserve Bank has previously hosted discussions on small business finance issues, including a Small Business Finance Roundtable in 2012 and a Conference on Small Business Conditions and Finance in 2015.

The Australian Banking Association, along with the Australian Council of Small business, representatives for member Banks and other stakeholders were also in attendance to bring their own perspective on the issues and to answer questions. The event was agreed to and organised at the end of last year.

Australian Banking Association CEO Anna Bligh said that the Roundtable was an important opportunity for Australia’s banks to listen first hand to the needs of small business.

“Small business is the engine room of the Australian economy, accounting for more than 40% of all jobs or around 4.7 million people,” Ms Bligh said.

“This Roundtable was an important step in building the relationship between banks, small businesses and their representatives.

“Banks are working hard to better understand the needs of business, their challenges and how they can work with them to help them achieve their goals,” she said.

SME Funding an Issue Says New Report

The latest edition of the Scottish Pacific SME Growth Index has been released. It gives an interesting snapshot on the critically important SME sector in Australia. Once again, as in our own SME surveys, cash-flow is king. 90% of SME owners said they faced cash-flow related issues.  That said, the non-bank sector, including Fintechs need to do more to raise awareness of the solutions they offer.

SME business confidence is on the rise finds small business owners forecasting revenue to improve during the first half of 2018.

There appears to be a splitting of the pack in SME fortunes, with a greater number of previously “unchanged” growth SMEs moving into positive or negative growth.

For most SMEs cash flow has improved compared to 12 months ago, however one in 10 say they are worse off now. The number of SMEs reporting significantly better cash flow (27%) and better cash flow (42%) will hopefully act as a major driver of new capital expenditure and business investment demand.

Despite this reported rise in cash flow, nine out of 10 SMEs say they had cash flow issues in 2017 and nine out of 10 say these issues impacted on revenue. On average, small businesses say that better cash flow would have increased their 2017 revenue by 5-10%.

For SMEs with plans to invest in expansion over the next 6 months, 24% of them report they will fund that growth by borrowing from their main relationship bank – continuing a downward trend, and well short of the high of 38% who nominated this option to fund growth in the first round of the Index in September 2014.

21.7% of SMEs say they plan to use non-bank lenders to fund upcoming growth (with 90.8% planning to use their own funds). Non-bank lending intentions have trended upwards since the first Index, closing the gap between bank and non-bank lending intentions. Despite these intentions, more than 91% of SMEs responded in H1 2018 that in the previous 12 months they had not accessed any non-bank lending options to provide working capital for their business.

So while SMEs seem unsatisfied with traditional banks, they are not yet fully accessing opportunities available to them in the non-banking sector.

Results show that growth SMEs are five times more likely to use alternative lending options than declining growth SMEs, with debtor finance the most popular option. The growth potential for the non-bank lending sector is significant, given that 48% of SMEs who didn’t use non-bank lending in 2017 are considering it for 2018.

With SME owners revealing a solid reliance on personal credit cards to give their business the working capital required for day to day operations, those with better business solutions must find a way to reach these small business people.

Businesses implementing appropriate working capital solutions to get on top of cash flow impediments are well placed to realise their growth ambitions.

DFA’s SME Report 2017 Released

The latest results from the Digital Finance Analytics Small and Medium Business Survey, based on research from 52,000 firms over the past 12 months, is now available on request.   You can use the form below to obtain a free copy of the report.

There are around 2.2 million small and medium businesses (SME) operating in Australia, and nearly 5 million Australian households rely on income from them directly or indirectly. So a healthy SME sector is essential for the future growth of the country.

However, the latest edition of our report reveals that more than half of small business owners are not getting the financial assistance they require from lenders in Australia to grow their businesses.

Most SME’s are now digitally literate, yet the range of products and services offered to them via online channels remains below their expectations.

More SME’s are willing to embrace non-traditional lenders, via Fintech, thanks to greater penetration of digital devices, and more familiarity with these new players. In addition, many firms said they would consider switching banks, but in practice they do not.

Overall business confidence has improved a bit compared with our previous report, but the amount of “red tape” which firms have to navigate is a considerable barrier to growth.

Running a business is not easy. In some industries, more than half of newly formed businesses are likely to fail within three years. We found that banks are not offering the broader advice and assistance which could assist a newer business, so even simple concepts like cash flow management, overtrading and debtor management are not necessarily well understood. There is a significant opportunity for players to step up to assist, and in so doing they could cement and strengthen existing relationships as well as creating new ones.

We think simple “Robo-Advice” could be offered as part of a set of business services.

The sector is complex, and one-size certainly does not fit all. In this edition, we focus in particular on what we call “the voice of the customer”. In the body of the report we reveal the core market segmentation which we use for our analysis and we also explore this data at a summary level.

Here is a short video summary of the key findings.

The detailed results from the surveys are made available to our paying clients (details on request), but this report provides an overall summary of some of the main findings. We make only brief reference to our state by state findings, which are also covered in the full survey. Feel free to contact DFA if you require more information, or something specific. Our surveys can be extended to meet specific client needs.

Note this will NOT automatically send you our research updates, for that register here.

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SME Cash Flow Under Continued Pressure

We have updated our rolling SME survey, ahead of the next edition of the SME report, out soon. The previous version is still available on request. SME’s are under significant cash flow pressure. Today we walk though some of our findings.

We look at businesses up to $5m turnover, although most of the 2 million plus businesses are much smaller.

The average age of the owner is more likely to be 45-55 years, as often they have moved on to second careers, or decided to set up on their own.

Nearly half are less than 4 years old, and indeed more than half started are likely to fail in the first 3 years.

Construction and Real Estate services make up a large proportion of the total, and the SME sector overall is heavily relent on the property sector more broadly.

Around 60% of businesses are seeking to borrow, and most are looking for working capital support.

The main driver within working capital is delayed payments (especially from large private sector companies and some government agencies).

The average debtor days is more than 50 days and rising. It varies by state.

Our risk analysis metric shows that businesses in the other services and construction sectors are most risky when it comes to finance. Health care businesses are the lowest risk.

Next time we will look further at SME finances and their channel usage.

Yes, SME’s ARE Getting The Damp End of the Stick from the Banks

An inquiry into small business loans by the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) Kate Carnell, has found the big four banks consistently engage in practices that have caused significant harm to some small business customers. The ASBFEO inquiry investigated a selection of cases examined as part of the Parliamentary Joint Committee Inquiry into the Impairment of Customer Loans.

This report confirms what our SME surveys show – small business has an unequal relationship with their banks, have difficulty getting the finance they need on fair terms, and find that lenders bully them especially in times of hardship. That said, SME’s often are unable or unwilling to shop around to get better deals, and feel trapped by the current arrangements. You can a video on our analysis here, and get the free copy of the DFA report here. SME’s are a critical engine in the economy, and current banking behaviour towards them is a brake on growth.

The ASBFEO report has made a significant number of recommendations.

  • Strengthen the Australian Bankers’ Association’s six-point plan;
  • Code of Banking Practice be revised to include a specific small business section, with the Code to be approved and administered by ASIC;
  • No defaults on loans below $5 million where a small business has made payments and acted lawfully;
  • A minimum 30-business day notice period for potential breach of contract conditions;
  • A minimum 90-business day notice period for bank rollover decisions for loans below $5 million (longer for rural properties and complex businesses);
  • Banks required to provide a one-page summary of loan default triggers;
  • Banks to put in place a new and clearly written small business standard form contract;
  • Borrowers be provided with a choice of valuer, vauler instructions and valuation report;
  • Borrowers be provided a copy of instructions given to investigating accountants and the subsequent report;
  • Banks to eliminate perceived conflict of interest when investigating accountants appointed as receivers;
  • An industry-funded one-stop external dispute resolution body, with a unit dedicated to resolving small business disputes regarding credit facilities of up to $5 million;
  • Bank customer advocates be made available to consider small business complaints;
  • External disputes resolution schemes be extended to include disputes with third parties appointed by the bank and to borrowers who have undertaken farm debt mediation.
  • A national approach to farm debt mediation;
  • ASIC to establish a Small Business Commissioner.

The ASBFEO inquiry – completed in just over three months – investigated the circumstances surrounding a number of cases of alleged small business mistreatment by the banks, and concluded loan contract arrangements between banks and small businesses, put the borrower at a distinct disadvantage.

“Fundamentally, what we’ve found is that small businesses who take out a loan, do so under the impression that if they keep up their payments, they will stay out of trouble.  The reality is that this is not the case; that the clauses contained in standard small business loan contracts give banks an inordinate level of power over the borrower, who has zero ability to do anything about it,” Ms Carnell said.

“Basically, the terms in these contracts allow the bank to take action to protect itself from financial risk, by inflicting added demands on the borrower.

“For example, banks may conduct a new valuation on the assets securing the loan.  Now if the value is found to have fallen, the borrower faces significantly increased – and potentially unmanageable – loan costs.  Banks also have the power to unexpectedly call in the loan, and demand repayment in an unrealistic timeframe.

“So what ends up happening is that through no fault of their own, small businesses could quickly find themselves in default, even though they’ve made each loan payment, on time, every time.

“The banks argue that they don’t use these contract clauses, however our inquiry found this is simply not true; that banks do in fact utilise these clauses, much to the surprise and heart-break of their small business borrowers,” she said.

Ms Carnell said the ASBFEO report outlines recommendations that can be implemented – many in a short timeframe – to help alleviate the vulnerability of small business borrowers when entering contracts, while not impacting on the financial viability of the banks.

“The cases we examined during our inquiry highlighted the glaring need to ensure small business bank customers are provided with simple standard contracts that are written in plain English and that get rid of the clauses giving banks all the power,” Ms Carnell said.

“It’s also clear from the cases we looked at, that current thresholds governing small business external dispute resolution are insufficient, so we will certainly support work in establishing a mechanism to provide timely and affordable access to justice for cash-strapped small businesses,” she said.

Ms Carnell said the ASBFEO will publish six monthly scorecards on the progress banks are making in response to the recommendations contained in the ASBFEO report.

“Since the GFC there have been 17 inquiries and reviews that have produced more than 40 recommendations over the years, relating to the small business sector.  Despite this, the banks have consistently failed to implement changes to address persistent problems” Ms Carnell said.

“Frankly, the banks take ‘kicking the can down the road’ to new levels.  This is no longer acceptable and I’m determined the recommendations we’ve made are adopted as quickly as possible.  This report is a living document; it’s only the beginning of our work in this area,” she said.

Ms Carnell said she hopes that as industry leaders, the four major banks will seize the opportunity to be exemplars for change, saying the ASBFEO has already secured varying levels of in–principle support from the banks on a range of issues.

“While there’s certainly a lot of work to be done, it’s important to give credit where it’s due, with the big four banks committing – albeit to varying degrees – to make changes in a number of problem areas identified during our inquiry process,” Ms Carnell said.

These include amending the Code of Banking Practice to provide greater small business protections, the creation of customer advocates and improved transparency on valuations.

Background:

On 6 September 2016, the Minister for Small Business, the Hon. Michael McCormack MP, tasked the ASBFEO with undertaking an inquiry into the adequacy of the law and practices governing financial lending to small businesses.

The ASBFEO inquiry investigated a selection of cases examined as part of the Parliamentary Joint Committee Inquiry into the Impairment of Customer Loans.

Throughout the inquiry process executives from the four major banks were summonsed to attend public hearings, with the ASBFEO using its Royal Commission-like powers to compel banks to produce required case documentation.  The inquiry also heard evidence from bank customers during private hearings, and considered the findings of previous inquiries and reviews.

The Financing of Nonemployer Firms

From The St. Louis Fed Blog.

Nonemployer firms that applied for financing were more likely to operate at a loss, according to the recently released 2015 Small Business Credit Survey: Report on Nonemployer Firms.

This report, produced jointly by the Federal Reserve banks of St. Louis, Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia and Richmond, examined trends in businesses with no employees other than the owners. As the report noted, these businesses make up nearly 80 percent of all U.S. firms.

Applying for Financing

The report noted that 32 percent of survey respondents said they applied for financing in the previous 12 months. Among those who applied, the most common reason (66 percent) was to expand the business or to take advantage of a new opportunity. The next most common reason (38 percent) was to cover operating expenses. (Respondents could select multiple answers.)

Among those businesses that did not apply for financing, the top three reasons were:

  • Debt aversion (33 percent)
  • Already had sufficient financing (30 percent)
  • Believed they would be turned down (25 percent)

Profitability: Applicants vs. Nonapplicants

As the report noted: “Collectively, applicants were less profitable than the nonapplicants.” The figure below shows the difference.

profitability of small businesses that applied for financing

Financing Approval

Among firms that applied for financing, 41 percent were not approved for any of the funding they sought. The percentages of firms not receiving any funding grew smaller as firms grew larger: 48 percent of firms with less than $25,000 in revenue did not receive any funding, while only 28 percent of firms with revenues greater than $100,000 did not receive funding.

About 71 percent of firms received less financing than the amount sought. When asked about the primary impact of this financing shortfall, the top response (33 percent) said the firm had to delay expansion. Other top answers were that they used personal funds (22 percent), were unable to meet expenses (18 percent) and passed on business opportunities (13 percent).

Additional Resources

How speeding up payments to small businesses creates jobs

From The US Conversation.

Speeding up payments to SME’s would have a major positive impact. Operating a small business, the backbone of the U.S. economy, has always been tough. The same is true in Australia, and cash flow is a major challenge, as data from our SME survey shows:

According to The Conversation, SME’s also been disproportionately hurt by the Great Recession, losing 40 percent more jobs than the rest of the private sector combined.

Interestingly, as my research with Harvard’s Ramana Nanda shows there’s a fairly straightforward way to support small businesses, make them more profitable and hire more: pay them faster.

A major source of financing

When a business is not paid for weeks after a sale, it is effectively providing short-term financing to its customers, something called “trade credit.” This is recorded in the balance sheet as accounts receivable.

Despite its economic importance, trade credit has received little attention in the academic literature so far, relative to other sources of financing, yet it is a major source of funding for the U.S. economy. The use of trade credit is recorded on companies’ accounting statements as “trade payables” in the liability section of the balance sheet. According to the Federal Fund Flows, trade payables amounted to US$2.1 trillion on nonfinancial companies’ balance sheets at the end of the third quarter of 2006, two times more than bank loans and three times as much as a short-term debt instrument known as commercial paper.

Recent news reports have highlighted the problem of slow payments to suppliers as large companies extend their payment periods, often with crushing results for small businesses.

Other countries have tried to reform the trade credit market, especially in Europe, where a directive was adopted in 2011 limiting intercompany payment periods for all sectors to 60 days (with a few exceptions).

In an earlier paper, I showed that requiring payments to be made within shorter time periods had a large effect on small businesses’ survival when it was adopted in France. Receiving their money earlier led them to default less often on their own suppliers and their financiers. Their probability to go bankrupt dropped by a quarter.

Accelerating payments

To learn more about the impact of such reforms in the U.S., we studied the effects of speeding up payments to federal contractors.

The QuickPay reform, announced in September 2011, accelerated payments from the federal government to a subset of small business contractors in the U.S., shrinking the payment period from 30 days to 15 days – thus accelerating $64 billion in annual federal contract value.

Federal government procurement amounts to 4 percent of U.S. gross domestic product and includes $100 billion in goods and services purchased directly from small businesses, spanning virtually every county and industry in the U.S. In the past, government contracts required payment one to two months following the approval of an invoice, with the result that these small businesses were effectively lending to the government – and often while doing so, they had to simultaneously borrow from banks to finance their payroll and working capital.

Our research shows that even small improvements in cash collection can have large direct effects on hiring due to the multiplier effect of working capital. On average, each accelerated dollar of payment led to an almost 10 cent increase in payroll, with two-thirds of the increase coming from new hires and the balance from increased earnings per worker. Collectively, the new policy – which accelerated $64 billion in payments – increased annual payroll by $6 billion and created just over 75,000 jobs in the three years following the reform.

To give an example, take a business selling $1 million throughout the year to its customers and being paid 30 days after delivering its product. It therefore has to finance 30 days’ worth of sales at any given time (or 8 percent of its annual sales). As a result, it constantly has about $80,000 in cash tied up in accounts receivable.

A shift in the payment regime from 30 days to 15 days means that the firm has to finance only 15 days of sales, or $40,000. And that would in turn help it eventually sustain $2 million in annual sales and double in size.

Holding back growth

These findings confirm the widely shared belief among policymakers and business owners that long payment terms hold back small business growth.

They also raise the question as to why the economy relies so much on trade credit if it costs so much in terms of jobs, and whether other policies might be undertaken to reduce it. An interesting follow-up policy to QuickPay was SupplierPay. In that program, over 40 companies including Apple, AT&T, CVS, Johnson & Johnson and Toyota pledged to pay their small suppliers faster or enable a financing solution that helps them access working capital at a lower cost.

It is likely that more information on customers’ quality and speed of payments would allow suppliers to choose whether to work with businesses that pay more slowly. So following a “name and shame” logic, companies might feel they have to accelerate payments not to be perceived as bad customers.

The broader impact

Would it make sense to sustain and extend this policy?

An interesting aspect of our analysis is that the effect of QuickPay depends on local labor market conditions. It was most pronounced in areas with high unemployment rates when it was introduced. Elsewhere job creation was limited.

The reason for this is that helping small businesses grow gives them an advantage over other companies operating locally. By hiring more, these small business contractors make it harder for others to do so. Unless there is unemployment, this crowding-out effect offsets the employment gains of the policy.

As such, such a policy will be effective in stimulating total employment only in areas or times of high unemployment.

Author: Jean-Noel Barrot, Assistant Professor of Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management