Aug 21
A Franco-Israeli entrepreneur is hoping to rekindle some of the optimism of the dotcom boom with a new social networking site that combines the mass-audience reach of eBay with the trend for grassroots funding of small businesses.
Serge Bueno, who relaunched the SodaStream soft drinks maker in mainland Europe, is hoping that his latest project, called the Tribe, will help the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs get off the ground by providing them with a ready-made market.
His plan comes as the UK government continues to press high street banks to start lending to small businesses again. Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, admitted this month that the credit crunch was lasting longer than he expected. While large companies have access to other sources of funding, small and medium-sized companies are still struggling to obtain the cash they need for investment.
Bueno said: “The idea for the Tribe is very simple.
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Tags: Networking Site, Site, Social Networking, Social Networking Site
Aug 17
The scarcity of expansion capital continues to hit healthy SMEs.
Research by freelancer recruitment website PeoplePerHour found that 96 per cent of the 360 respondents said it was now harder than ever to obtain growth finance.
Xenios Thrasyvoulou, CEO of PeoplePerHour, says: ‘Access to funding remains a key obstacle for SMEs. The government has recognised the importance of the small business sector, but if an “enterprise-led recovery” is to happen, banks must re-examine their lending policies and extend a helping hand to SMEs.’
Encouragingly, 71 per cent of respondents said it was now easier to start a business compared to five years ago, with 40 per cent saying it was much simpler to sell products and services online.
Tags: Smes
Aug 13
Representative Betsy Markey, the Democrat who represents Colorado’s Fourth District, may have owned and operated two small businesses but that didn’t keep the National Federation of Independent Business from calling her Republican opponent “the only choice for small-business owners in this Congressional race.”
In addition to backing Cory Gardner, a fast-rising member of Colorado’s House of Representatives, the N.F.I.B. will contribute $5,000 to his general election campaign, the maximum allowed by law, said Sharon Sussin, the group’s national political director. (It contributed $5,000 to the primary fight, as well.) The group also intends to buy advertising for the race, both online and in traditional media. “It is definitely a priority race for us,” Ms. Sussin said.
In the endorsement, announced on Thursday, the N.F.I.B. promised to encourage its members in Colorado “to help turn out the small-business vote on Gardner’s behalf on Election Day.” The N.F.I.B.
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Aug 09
Gary Hoffman had a front line view of the chaos at Northern Rock that was sparked three years ago. As a boardroom boss of Barclays at the time, his annual day working in a branch coincided with the “run on Rock”.
Assigned to a Barclays branch in the City of London, Hoffman was mesmerised by the clamour to withdraw savings from the Rock. “Some of the Northern Rock staff brought their money to Barclays,” said Hoffman – now one of the country’s highest paid civil servants after being headhunted to become chief executive of the Newcastle-based lender. “There were massive inflows.”
It took just five weeks for the paralysis in the money markets that began three years ago this week to leave the Newcastle-based lender with queues of anxious customers waiting to withdraw their life savings for fear of its collapse.
Calamity
But it was as Hoffman walked past the queue of Northern Rock customers lining Moorgate in the City that he resolved the troubled lender must have a future.
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Tags: Northern Rock, Rock
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