across the pond the uk and ireland scene
p
enning a regular report
for my American friends is
a pleasure, yet my piece
this month is tinged with
sadness for it includes an
obituary.
In the 1960s, factoring landed in
England in the shape of International
Factors, which was partially owned by
Lloyds Bank. Factoring was not well
received in the UK in the early days.
It is hard to remember it now, but the
1960s were a decade that shook us
to the core as the Beatles conquered
the world with their music. The Mini
and the E-Type Jaguar, too, embraced
both revolution, and motoring for the
masses, and were beautiful options
for those with greater ambition, but
unable to afford a Ferrari or Aston
Martin. And entrepreneurs who had
been lectured on the dangers of overtrading by crusty old banks found that
a fast growing sales ledger could be
turned into gold by factoring to fund
the next phase of development.
Lloyds Bank was traditionally conservative, so exporting areas of business
risk and current asset finance to a specialist operation made so much sense:
International Factors became a legend
in British business finance.
It did more than carve a name as a
finance house; it also became a university
for so many great names in senior
management in asset finance today.
Robert Lefroy is editor of Business Money, the first dedicated commercial finance
journal in the UK. He can be contacted at
lefroy@business-money.com.
