Stellar Book Review of Credit Risk Management - The Novel in The Asset Magazine

In the March 2015 edition of The Asset the Assistant Editor, Christoph Kober, reviews Credit Risk Management – The Novel (Part One).

Here is a short extract:

“In The Novel, Wells presents technical concepts in a manner that is enlightening to anyone interested in how oil majors and traders fuel the world economy. In the sometimes covert world of commodities, the book reveals how large oil majors can do business even with nefarious traders and national oil companies with erratic payment patterns.

Practical advice wrapped in lively accounts of how large commodity deals are brokered make the book a helpful guide not only to credit professionals but treasurers and financial directors as well.

But The Novel also has room for fiction. James “Jim” E Cricket, the head of the team of “creditphiles” at ShamOil, fancies more than just collateral when dealing with risky buyers. World peace is what he really strives for. Jim nearly brokers the smooth fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Apartheid in a matter of just a few months.

The Novel recounts some of the most dramatic geopolitical events at the end of the 20th century – which of course proved to be watershed moments for the commodities industries as well. Fast forward two decades and geopolitical hotspots throughout the world again keep businesses on their toes. Although set in the 1990s, the solutions presented by Wells were in fact developed more recently, he says, and their applicability today adds to the book’s relevance.

Wells aims to reach an entirely different group of readers with The Novel – students and graduates undecided where to work. “Younger people looking for a career in finance are drawn to investment banking because of the money it offers. I have always found that working in business is much more exciting because real stuff moves as a result of your actions as a credit specialist. There are very few finance programmes that give students exposure to credit risk management in their courses. I hope The Novel can add to this education and show that managing customer and supplier risk in a real business is an exciting career opportunity.”

Credit Risk Management – The Novel, Part One (2013) is published by T3P LIMITED and available for purchase at Amazon.
ISBN: 978-0-9576279-2-5, 104 pages

To read the whole Book Review click: www.t3plimited.com/TAMar2015TheNovelReviewCK.pdf

To subscribe to The Asset click: www.theasset.com

A Global Shortage of Required Skills Threatens Prosperity in the lead up to and post 2030

A study by Rainer Strack presented in an amusing TED Talk indicates that by 2030, many of the world's largest economies will have more jobs than adult citizens to do those jobs.

What is worse there will be a global shortage of people with the skills to fill those jobs. In order to view this 12 minute talk click this link: http://go.ted.com/tdV

Using the example of Germany, Strack illustrates that despite the global population ballooning to about 8.5 billion by 2030 the working age populations in major producing countries will have shrunk. The situation in Germany is illustrated here, bearing in mind that the demographic profile utilised exists so the 2030 position is accurately predicted; ignoring immigration/emigration and any unfortunate calamity that may occur.

The same exercise applied to other major producing nations indicates the seriousness of the situation:

Of course the skill distribution amongst the working age population versus the needs of these economies in 2030 is more important than simple numbers.

In this talk Strack describes the Skills Mismatch that will surface despite the use of robots and other artificial intelligence in the manufacturing and service sectors. He points to the motor manufacturing industry as an area that has adopted technology to more or less replace people on the production line but has spawned associated jobs, such that more or less the same numbers of people are now involved in the process. However those new jobs require very different skill sets.

This leads to the conclusion that the global community needs to take urgent steps to ensure a suitably equipped workforce is available to maintain global GDP at adequate levels in the future. The reduction in workforce coupled with a probable skills mismatch threatens the prosperity of future generations if action is not initiated without delay.

Real Businesses - The Success Paradox

Inventories grow
Receivables thrive
Payables vegetate
Liquidity withers

Frozen Working Capital
Inventory minus Payables
Plus Receivables
Sucks up cash
Locks it out of reach
It is a Greedy Beast

Business growth is Success
But it feeds the Greedy Beast
Beware the spectre of Liquidity Risk
The bedfellow of Bankruptcy

Reduce inventory days
Increase payable terms
Shrink receivable days
Release oodles of loot
Rein in the Greedy Brute