Good morning, thank you to Tony etc..

We are ten years away from the credit crunch that tore up the rulebook for lending and investing in business in this country.

Over-leveraged companies who’d become over reliant on Venture Capitalists, and cheap money from banking institutions - who’d grown and expanded too quickly for comfort were found wanting. Closures on the high street were commonplace, and then everyone who was a lender took their ball home and said they couldn’t play anymore….

A lot has happened since then and TODAY the British Banking Association estimates that 80% of small and medium sized businesses applications for finance in the last quarter of last year were approved. Total lending to SMEs stands at around £110 billion pounds.

HOWEVER, smaller businesses, those with fewer than 50 employees, are still finding borrowing difficult, with 50% of applications from companies younger than five years being rejected.

And according to the Chamber many companies don’t really know where to turn if they receive a rejection from a main high-street bank….

SO WE’RE GOING TO DISCUSS all that as well as the why, where, what and how to – are four esteemed members of the banking and finance sector…

It’s also a chance to ask your questions, or put your points to the panel in a while, so do get thinking about what your business needs to know…

Joining us today are:

 A man who leads the Debt Advisory team at Duff & Phelps that helps businesses refinance, restructure or renegotiate their debt. The team works with over 400 businesses a year across all sectors and typically in the £1M to £5M space.

Prior to joining D&P in 2010, he worked in corporate banking for 25 years from the age of 11 (that’s what it says here anyway!)… please welcome Paul Smith.

Question to Paul: Re-structuring debt is your specialty, have things settled down now, 10 years after the credit crunch?"

And we’re also joined by a NatWest Director in Commercial Banking...

Having spent the past 29 years in banking, with a number of years' experience as a frontline relationship manager lending to SME's, Andrea Kelly now leads a team of 10 NatWest managers and their dedicated support staff. They work with SME customers across the Greater Manchester region offering a range of accredited sector specialists: her team focus on helping people achieve both their business and personal ambitions, for example by facilitating growth, suggesting ways to increase efficiency and / or mitigating/reducing risk within the business.

Question to Andrea: You work with mid-tier businesses, what sorts of things do they want to raise money for at the moment?

 Rachel Craft, from Regency Factors is here, she works with small to mid-sized businesses, helping their cash flow with invoice factoring.

Question to Rachel: It’s simple isn’t it Rachel, just explain what invoice factoring involves?

 Adam Gillet, is the senior Equity Fundraising Manager at CrowdCube – which as the name suggests is a crowdfunding business.

Question to Adam: Can you give us the definitive answer on this, what is crowdfunding?