WSJ Article Points to Continued Borrowing Challenges
Posted on 21. Apr, 2010 by borourke in Franchising
Borrowing for business expansion, particularly in franchising, has been quite difficult for some time now. What is compounding the situation is that real estate values have not risen and this means inadequate collateral for lenders to make deals happen. A recent Wall Street Journal article, Real Estate Bust Hurts Lending for Little Guys, written by Emily Maltby, concurs with this view. Here is an excerpt:
“Even as some segments of the economy bounce back, the lagging pace of improvement in the real-estate market continues to hamper owners’ efforts at landing credit. “As the big guys are doing better, people ask, why not the smaller firms? Well, this is a huge part of the reason,” says William Dennis, Jr., a senior research fellow at the National Federation of Independent Business in Washington.
Because business owners used real estate to support financing endeavors in a variety of ways, the subprime crisis hit Main Street particularly hard as it rippled through the credit markets. Before the real-estate bubble burst, home and business properties were a reliable source of collateral for many businesses.”
Franchisors, who rely on and had relied upon easily available credit in the recent past for franchisees to expand, are going to have to reconsider their growth plans for the forseeable future as collateral values aren’t going up anytime soon. That is why it is critical for franchise systems to use this opportunity to sharpen their swords. Improving internal systems, methods and support to really help existing franchises achieve greater profit and stability is more important than ever. Franchise flywheel represents the type of tools ZOR’s should be adopting to put an emphasis on improving core capabilities until the damper on growth passes.
