Insolvency advice is not just for SMEs, even Kodak has its moments!

Kodak may well have sought insolvency advice recently, the company has suffered financially over recent years, competitors have quickly over took the once market leader, as they have moved forward increasingly with the digital age. Kodak recently filed for bankruptcy protection, to allow it time to assess its position without having to face looming creditors and hopefully take the essential and necessary steps to allow it full corporate recovery.

It is believed one of its major down falls was the decision to focus more on manufacturing printers, and shift away from the camera market. An odd move since the camera was the reason for the companies original success. Kodak has been in existence for over 133 years and its directors unanimously voted for taking these insolvency advice measures to create the best chance of survival.
Ironically, Kodak’s problems stemmed from their original success – selling film, which made them an over night success for decades. The digital camera was born and film sales plummeted. Its not like Kodak did not see this coming, how could anybody not see the digital age come galloping over the horizon at the speed of light. They simply hesitated for too long, it was felt moving away from film would essentially disembowel the business and this caused them to stall on formulating a new strategy, the result – competitors over took!

Kodak are implementing many of the measures that would be included as part of any insolvency advice strategy. A credit facility to the tune of £615million through Citigroup has been put into place and shares have been suspended, which have been in decline for the last decade. Concentrated efforts will be aligned to new product development in the area of digital and future technological advancement, an area, if tackled correctly is the most likely to spring board them back to success.

The best advice any business can take is to follow in the foot steps of Kodak in terms of the way they are tackling their corporate recovery. As soon as problems arise, do not ignore the situation, seek insolvency advice and put measures in place to try and save your business. There is nearly always a solution to any problem and we can help you find it. Burton Sweet wishes Kodak a successful future and full business recovery.

Corporate recovery – don’t follow in the footsteps of Colin Hendry

Corporate recovery advice can help individual directors whose assets may be linked to their business – it isn’t just isolated to the company’s welfare. If you are the director of a business that goes bankrupt, it could have a huge impact on you and your family. Take footballer Colin Hendry, who was recently declared bankrupt. His financial situation and business interests have been left in tatters, as have the effects it has left on his family. Could he have avoided this or at the very least reduced the severity of its impact with sound insolvency advice.

Ex-international footballer Colin Hendry was confirmed bankrupt despite huge personal wealth and many successful business interests. The prospect of bankruptcy and financial difficulty is not limited to businesses and individuals of lower incomes and turnover, sometimes the more you have, the greater the risk of loss. For businesses, if issues are addressed early on and they are not left to spiral out of control, as in the case off Hendry, corporate recovery can mean the difference between future or failure.

Ex Rangers player Hendry made millions across his high profile career. It was confirmed that he owes around £2.2 million to the taxman and other creditors, some of whom are family and friends. He had established 3 successful businesses in as many years and now has only a very frugal £250 credit limit at the bank.

He admitted to the courts that gambling had played a large part in his financial problems and the bad habits began soon after the death of his wife, who died after a plastic surgery procedure went wrong. Hendry struggled to cope with her death and his gambling quickly spiralled out of control. He owes Spreadex – an online gambling company over £30,000. They have now filed a bankruptcy petition against the footballer which is to be held at Blackpool County Court. This is just a tiny portion of what the player owes in gambling and taxation debts.

Burton Sweet Corporate Recovery deals with a whole host of issues that pertain to the circumstances of businesses and individuals when we are providing insolvency advice. It doesn’t matter what caused the financial troubles but how corporate recovery or individual recovery are tackled to get over the issues and Burton Sweet are experts in this field.

Corporate recovery, bankruptcy and the main reasons companies hit trouble

Corporate recovery and insolvency advice could benefit as many as 80% of UK businesses, this is the percentage of companies that face some form of financial difficulty in their life cycle. There are a million and one factors that can affect a company’s financial well being, which can include anything from the external issues of a poor economic climate, to a poor business strategy. Here are the top causes behind business bankruptcy.

1) External conditions outside of the business, like an increase in the costs associated with running a business, a new competitor opening down the road or some sort of act of god like a flood or fire. There is little you can do to avoid these things happening, except adjust the internal factors taking place in your business accordingly.

2) Internal business conditions that can be controlled, such as bad location, an unbalanced client portfolio and weak management. These factors can be adjusted, if your premises are in the wrong location then move. If you rely on clients from one major industry or have one client that generates 80% of your revenue, have a think about how vulnerable this makes your business. If that industry sector hits problems or your one major client goes under – you could too!

3) Tax related issues are a vey common area of concern, particularly to smaller business owners who perhaps don’t have the processes in place for tax to be managed via automated systems and undertake tax management manually or in their heads! This can result in hefty amounts being owed either in income tax, employee related taxes or VAT, as the money gets spent on other things and the tax bills begin to come in thick and fast. At Burton Sweet Corporate Recovery we have corporate recovery tax specialists who can help you with this.

4) Financial problems, for instance a sudden loss or withdrawal of capital or funding. It is not uncommon for banks to recall lending in today’s economic climate. A classic example of this was the recent recall of a major bank from the famous chef Gordon Ramsay, who was forced to close restaurants. The inability to secure new capital when it is needed can often also result in company bankruptcy, as can cash flow difficulties – for example if outgoings remain the same or increase and a handful of major clients default on payments because of their own financial adversity.

If you think your business may be at threat from any of these factors, why not give Burton Sweet Corporate Recovery a call and benefit from our specialist corporate recovery and insolvency advice – it could save your company, your pride and all the hard work and cash you have invested in your business over the time you have been in business.

Use insolvency advice as prevention not just a cure

Many businesses have been faced with seeking insolvency advice as the tough economic climate forces many companies out of business or at the very least into financial crisis.

Official statistics from the Insolvency Service revealed that during 2011, there was an increase of between 2% and 4% of businesses going into liquidation, when compared to the year before. The figures for UK businesses were in contrast to that of individuals. Data showed that during 2011, there was a significant drop in individual insolvencies, which varied between 1.7% and 15.5% throughout the year. It seems that the economic downturn and uncertainty of recent years has taken its toll more heavily on companies, as the public strive to get on top of their personal finances. It shows that many individuals have simply had to make some tough decisions when managing their money during a period of time when inflation has soared over earnings increases and taxation is at an all time high. In situations like this you often expect cases of insolvency among the general public to go through the roof. There has been a lot of private and government debt and insolvency advice available to the general public during the tough times and this has obviously been of some help.

One of the cofounding economic issues of individuals getting on top of their finances and curbing spending, is that for businesses who rely heavily on consumer trade are affected further still. Business slows down and the chances of them recovering is quite slim, unless their business model can be tweaked, the economy recovers (which often takes time) or the business has other revenue or equity  to see it through the blip.

Statistics reveal that there are certain business types that are more venerable and at risk from insolvency. Smaller businesses, in particular those outside of the generally speaking more affluent South-East, are at greater risk of failure and therefore more likely to require corporate recovery. For any company worried about the risk of insolvency or even if you would like advice on how you can avoid hitting financial trouble during times of economic hardship, speak to the insolvency advice experts – Burton Sweet Corporate Recovery.

Tax problems? Corporate recovery at Burton Sweet Corporate Recovery; don’t let tax take over

Burton Sweet Corporate Recovery is a leading firm of business recovery and insolvency practitioners. We aim to help financially distressed businesses find effective solutions to their financial difficulties. We maintain high standards of integrity, professionalism and service, as standard. We recognise that financial difficulties often bring a large degree of emotional turmoil for all parties involved, and so we always act with empathy and understanding. We aim to offer straightforward options, realistic solutions and always endeavor to simplify technical matters. Our expert teams are based in nine locations: Bristol, Bournemouth, Dursley, Gloucester, Shepton Mallet, Shrewsbury, Thornbury, Weston-Super-Mare and Wotton-Under-Edge.

Due to the economic downturn of the past few years, more and more businesses have been coming to us for corporate recovery advice. One of the growing areas of concern has been the inability of many companies to meet tax payments from HMRC, either VAT, PAYE or NIC. It is always a huge worry if these payments cannot be met and puts a huge strain on businesses and their owners.

If your business has tax problems, like arrears of PAYE and VAT then the company is probably either insolvent or close to insolvency. You must act to do something about these problems in order to ensure your company recovers.

If you have not managed to pay PAYE and NIC deductions to HM Revenue & Customs, it is considered a serious offence; essentially as it is tax payer’s money that is viewed as being withheld. It may be that the money has been deducted and gone on to pay other debts; this however does make it fine.

What are the available options if I have not met TAX payments?
1.    Ask for time to pay the debt. In the current recession HMRC has a Business Payment Support Service introduced by the Government in 2008. It states that all SME’s with cash flow issues should be able to get a ‘time to pay’ arrangement with HMRC.
2.    You could consider a company voluntary arrangement.
3.    An administration solution may protect the company from aggressive legal action from HMRC.
4.    Finally, can you introduce more money into the company to pay the tax debts?
Burton Sweet Corporate Recovery has the experience to help you with any of the above options.

Non payment of any form of tax is a failure to comply with tax legislation and also signifies publicly and loud and clear to HMRC that the company is insolvent. So, you need to act properly and responsibly and deal with this serious threat to your company.
The Burton Sweet Corporate Recovery team has vast experience in providing discrete tax related corporate recovery, with a successful track record in handling even the most complex assignments. We guarantee there is way out, get in touch today, don’t put it off until tomorrow – contact us now.