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The International Factors Association and the commercial finance software company, Distinctive Solutions, are holding their seventh annual factoring conference in Scottsdale, Arizona from 4th to 7th April 2001.
TIMETABLE
Wednesday 4th April
Golf Tournament
Welcome Reception
20/12/2000
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The Belgian-Dutch financial services group Fortis is to withdraw from under-performing businesses that do not fit its overall strategy of developing growth platforms in Europe, the USA and Asia. Yesterday the bank announced that it will be examining all its operations with a view to scaling back its non-core activities allowing the reallocation of their capital.
20/12/2000
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Fortis, the Belgium/Netherlands based financial services group, has denied rumours that it is on the point of merging with another European financial services group. The denial was a response to reports that it may be negotiating with any of a number of other groups including the UK bank Lloyds-TSB and Credit Suisse of Switzerland. However, the group has not ruled out a merger with a company of similar size and standing at some time in the future.
18/12/2000
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Merchant Trade Finance Limited and Merchant Commercial Finance Limited
today released their annual accounts for the fifteen months ended 29 February 2000, which was their first period of trading. Merchant Commercial Finance’s turnover was recorded at Ј3,456,044 and Merchant Trade Finance’s turnover was Ј1,197,574. For both of these companies, turnover is defined as the invoiced value of goods and services plus interest income.
Pre taxation losses of Ј138,321 were recorded for Merchant Commercial Finance and Merchant Trade Finance recorded a pre taxation profit of Ј1,195.
13/12/2000
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The Competition Commission, the UK’s anti-trust agency, is to extend its current investigation into the provision of services for small firms by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
RBS is the largest provider of banking services to UK small businesses. The Commission believes that it may account for as much as one quarter of the UK SME market since its acquisition of NatWest Bank in early 2000. By definition a 25% share of a specific market amounts to a scale monopoly.
11/12/2000
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The UK Competition Commission is in the process of investigating a possible oligopoly being operated by the four main UK clearing banks (HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds-TSB and RSB-NatWest) in the provision of services to small businesses (SMEs). After a study lasting for 15 months the Commission will publish its findings in June 2001.
More specifically, the Commission is now also investigating the possibility that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RSB) is effectively operating a monopoly by taking up as much as 25% of SME business since its acquisition of NatWest Bank early in 2000.
11/12/2000
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National Australia Bank (NAB) has confirmed its intention to use some of the $2.75 billion earnings from the sale of its US subsidiary, Michigan National Corporation, to ABN Amro of the Netherlands to finance the expansion of its presence in the UK. NAB has already acquired both Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank and plans to merge them into a single entity.
NAB has a range of options for developing its UK interests further and will not necessarily seek to acquire a local firm.
11/12/2000
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Euro Sales Finance (ESF) has appointed Bluestone Software Inc. to power its dedicated web portal, the first of its kind in the asset finance market, using its Total-e-Business facility.
11/12/2000
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Business Europe has launched a new on-line service aimed at supporting small and medium sized companies (SMEs).
The service will focus on practical approaches to the specific needs of SMEs. It will offer analysis, advice and user forums on relevant issues generated from current news items. Typical areas of interest will be government regulation, developments in e-commerce and ways of finding new business. It aims to streamline the process of accessing key information.
11/12/2000
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Western banks are exercising a growing influence over their counterparts in many emerging market countries. They have been introducing a new and more aggressively competitive element to local banking markets and local banks are being forced to rationalise and modernise their own operations in order to compete with them.
11/12/2000
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The Tankan survey published by the Bank of Japan in early October 2000 suggests that the Japanese economy is moving out of recession. However, there are fears that a modest recovery achieved over the course of 2000 may be short lived and most companies do not expect the recent improvement in conditions to continue.
In these circumstances the government is not expected to change its current supportive fiscal policy.
Different sectors of the economy have had varying experiences in recent months. Notably, larger companies have been faring much better than small ones.
11/12/2000
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The Japanese banking sector is performing badly compared with most other sectors of the economy. While many other large companies have recently been recording increased earnings, the major banks are still registering falling profits.
For instance, Sakura Bank Ltd, one of the largest banks, has reported profits for the two quarters ending 30 September 2000, down by 23% year-on-year at Yen 31.3 billion ($284.9 million). The effect of this fall was mitigated to some extent by cost cutting measures that allowed operating profits to rise by 8.8%.
11/12/2000
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The Thai economy has moved ahead strongly in recent months, enjoying growth of 6.6% in the April-June 2000 quarter. During the first half of the year gross domestic product increased by 5.9% over its level in January-June 1999.
11/12/2000
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CIT Commercial Services, the leading US factoring company, has entered into an agreement with RetailExchange.com, the online business-to-business exchange for surplus consumer products.
11/12/2000
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The Belgian/ Dutch financial services group Fortis yesterday announced that it is planning to retain its dual headquarters in Brussels and Amsterdam in order to strengthen its grip on its core Benelux market.
This puts to rest rumours that the company planned to create a single European headquarters in Amsterdam or Brussels. Fortis’ chief executive, Anton von Rossum, has said “Fortis is a Benelux based company with a Benelux identity and we have no plans on changing our headquarters in the next few years.”
07/12/2000
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