Business Financing For Companies With Negative Equity
Most businesses are still feeling the effects of the past recession in one way or another. The most affected businesses are finding themselves with more liabilities that assets, leaving them with a negative equity situation. Unless handled correctly, this situation can easily spiral into a vicious cycle that ends with the company declaring bankruptcy or shutting down.
Most companies with negative equity also have cash flow problems. Most commonly, these appear when the customers start demanding longer payment terms. Instead of paying invoices in net 30 days, they start paying them in net 60 days. This creates a liquidity problem that forces the company to start juggling vendor payments and other expenses while waiting to be paid. It also limits the ability of the company to take new orders. Before long, the company goes into a tail spin.
Many times, this cash flow problem can be corrected with business financing, enabling management to turn the company around. And here lies the problem. Getting business funding while having negative equity is nearly impossible. You won't be able to find a line of credit or business loan. And if you already have financing, it's unlikely that your institution will increase the line. After all, if you have negative equity, your company has no collateral. And institutions don't lend without collateral.
There is an alternative however. If you biggest problem is that you have cash flow problems due to slow paying clients, factoring financing may be the right solution to help you turn your company around. Invoice factoring accelerates your client payments by using a financial intermediary between your company and your customer. The factoring company, as the intermediary is called, advances you funds for your invoices as hold them until your customer pays. This increases your liquidity, improving your ability to pay vendors and take new orders.
One of the advantages of invoice factoring is that it's easier to obtain than conventional financing. The collateral that factoring companies are most interested on are your invoices from credit worthy customers. Most factoring companies are comfortable holding only that as collateral. Aside from that, your company will need to show how it plans to turn around its current situation.
If you currently have another business financing solution in place (e.g a business loan), you will probably need your lenders cooperation to add and integrate factoring into your company. Turning around a company that has negative equity is very challenging. You should consider hiring a qualified financial professional to help you with this situation.