James Douglas, a partner in our Debt Advisory group, was appointed to the Breedon Taskforce in January 2012 to explore ways of boosting finance available to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. The Taskforce formulated a number of recommendations that were well received both by the government and the business community.

In particular, James raised the profile of the supply chains between corporates as a source of finance to accelerate the recovery of the UK economy. Sharing James’ view, various Government bodies have shown strong interest in Supply Chain Finance. James also directly contributed to the establishment of the UK Private Placement Association with a view to increasing diversity in the UK capital markets by encouraging UK institutional investors to participate in the UK PP market.

James’ input demonstrates Deloitte’s expertise in this area and he has facilitated the participation of other stakeholders and experts in this project to further enrich the debate.

Post Breedon, Deloitte continues to contribute to the debate with colleagues involved in two working groups that are taking active steps to assist SMEs in accessing capital markets.

We’re now working with various organisations to help smaller businesses, particularly those based in regional areas and involved in the automotive industry, which have trouble accessing working capital and growth capital. Many of these businesses are owner-managed with very little in-house financial expertise.

That’s why we’re planning to run a series of working groups in Q4 2012 to advise SMEs on the different types of financing available to them, and importantly, to help them access finance which is right for the needs of their business. We’re also working with larger companies to encourage them to collaborate with their suppliers to accelerate credit circulation in the supply chain.