If you’re a growing businesses it can be a struggle to fund expansion and day-to-day working capital from internal resources.

If you are a business based in Wales and planning to raise finance in the near future then you may be interested a series of free workshops hosted by Business Wales.

Business Loan Services’ Rob Warlow will be leading these four hour workshops looking at:

• Why growth needs finance and the importance of the finance source being ‘fit for purpose’
• How to prepare a finance proposal for the bank, including,
  • Writing a business plan – the framework
  • The financial information required
  • 9 steps to preparing for a meeting with the bank
• What banks look for in a finance request; how they will assess your request and why they would say ‘no’
• The 9 sources of growth finance, including the range of alternative finance solutions

The workshop venues and dates are:

Wrexham – 5th February

Bangor – 6th February

Brecon – 13th February

Narbeth – 27th February

To find our more and to book on these free workshops, visit Business Wales website.

In the latest Business Finance Bulletin Rob Warlow reviews findings by the Insolvency trade body R3 on how zombie businesses may be facing challenges ahead as the economy grows.

New lenders keep appear on the finance scene and Rob shares the news of a new commercial lender, Secure Trust Bank, which is providing asset-based financial support to growing SMEs.

Funding Empire is one the growing band of crowdlenders and Rob has a chat with Parag Patel, owner and founder on what Funding Empire can do to help business owners access finance.

A clean credit report is important when raising finance and in this edition Rob looks at a recent survey by Experian, the credit reference agency, which reveals that many business owners have little knowledge about the make-up of a good or bad credit profile.

In the Business Finance Tip of the Week Rob shares a clip from a recent Business Wales ‘Access to Finance Workshop’ in which he talks about the type of proposals banks like to see.

You can also listen to this week’s episode as a podcast by clicking below or downloading it to your phone via Soundcloud so you can listen at your leisure.