Time up at Business Bank
THE British Business Bank (BBB) has had to grow up very fast in the pandemic. Marginal at best until lockdown, it was thrust to centre stage when Chancellor Rishi Sunak rolled out assistance for small and medium sized firms.
It is also the keeper of the Future Fund, which will provide up to £250m of loans to cash-strapped, mainly innovative enterprises, that will convert into equity if there are repayment issues.
An early change of leadership in the midst of the Covid-19 response, with chief executive Keith Morgan stepping down, does not suggest great confidence in his stewardship in Whitehall or among the banks.
The BBB failed miserably at first with the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) when its clunky systems failed to match up with the commercial banks’. To solve the problem, Sunak came up with the Bounce Back scheme for the smallest enterprises and, eventually, the 100pc bank indemnity against losses.
BBB rose to the challenge and in the 11 weeks of lockdown helped to push through £35bn of loans to 830,000 firms.
Its bureaucratic response has been contrasted with the swift interventions by the more developed Small Business Administration (SBA) in the US and Germany’s KfW, which together managed to dish out loans in billions of pounds (trillions in the case of the SBA) in super-quick time.
Interim leadership passes to Catherine Lewis La Torre. She, along with Alison Rose, at RBS, and Debbie Crosbie, at TSB, becomes the third woman to head a financial group at the heart of the UK’s recovery hopes. Lewis La Torre currently runs the BBB’s two commercial lending offshoots.
The Business Bank has a big role to play in Britain’s escape from the pandemic scarring. It will need the very smartest of commercial leadership if the taxpayer is not to be short-changed.
China syndrome
COMMERCIAL relations with China will be critical to Britain’s post-Brexit, post Covid19 future. It is strange to see the very same voices who robustly supported the UK’s divorce from the EU, under the slogan ‘Global Britain’ now demanding the country curtails dealings with Beijing.
A distinction must be drawn between dealings with China which impinge directly on the City and Hong Kong and those that pose potential national security threats.
One suspects the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not be directly targeting HSBC for criticism were Bank of America or JP Morgan principal financial players in Hong Kong marshalling trillions of dollars of transactions.
It is easy sitting in Washington, or at the desk of Aviva’s governance guru David Cumming, to tell HSBC that it was wrong to express support for China’s new security law. In doing its ‘kowtow’ HSBC had to think about the impact on staff across greater China and investors in Hong Kong and London, many of whom will own HSBC through pension funds.
All manner of Western companies are dependent on collaborating with China. But few have as deep roots as HSBC. It is after all in the name: Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation. Telecoms group Huawei
and Chinese participation in next-generation UK nuclear plants represent a different threat.
Vodafone has a powerful case for supporting Huawei and warns of having to tear down already-built facilities and slowing the 5G transformation. But allowing information-thirsty Chinese entities access to our telephone networks is a step too far.
Similarly, the idea of China as a direct participant in nuclear power generation is alarming. Realpolitik caused HSBC and Standard Chartered to support tougher security in Hong Kong.
The sharp rise in HSBC shares since its intervention tells a story that we can all understand.
Handy Andy
IT MUST feel like old times for Restaurant Group boss Andy Hornby.
In the financial crisis he crashed the hopes and dreams of investors and employees at HBOS when it was rescued by Lloyds Bank and the Government.
Now, as the boss of the owner of Frankie & Benny’s, he is placing the chain in voluntary liquidation, closing 125 outlets and 3,000 jobs are on the line. Doubtless Hornby, still under investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority, will be fine.
Isn’t life grand?